cover image The Secret Skin

The Secret Skin

Wendy N. Wagner. Neon Hemlock, $12.99 trade paper (102p) ISBN 978-1-952086-32-8

Set during Prohibition and framed as a letter from artist June Vogel to her lover, Wagner’s eerie, gorgeously rendered tale (after The Deer Kings) goes all in on gothic decadence. June returns to Storm Break, her family’s coastal Oregon estate, to be a nanny for Abigail, her brother Frederick’s nine-year-old daughter from his first marriage, while he’s honeymooning with his new wife, Lillian. June’s shocked to find the house in disrepair and her odd, otherworldly niece largely neglected. With memories of June’s demanding mother, Klan-member father, and cruel sister-in-law pervading the halls, the austere housekeeper constantly watching, and Frederick’s grasping business associate, Mr. Watson, running the nearby sawmill, there’s a solidly menacing atmosphere even without the supernatural element that slowly makes itself known: the house doesn’t like June’s return. When Frederick and his bride come back from their honeymoon early, it’s clear that Lillian is not what she seems—and that June is hopelessly attracted to her. As devastating family secrets come to light, June must break from the role of observer to save the people she loves. Wagner makes her debt to Rebecca explicit from the first sentence and takes the story to dizzying—perhaps slightly over-the-top—heights of gothicism in the finale. The evocative prose and insightful heroine make this a treasure. (Nov.)