The Kept: A Dark Historical Thriller – Mother and Son Revenge in the Frozen Wilderness

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, January 2014: If someone were to tell you that The Kept involved cross dressing and serial murder, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled on a new contemporary thriller. But James Scott’s debut, while thrilling, is set in rural upstate New York c: 1900. It tells the story of a mother and son who set off for a rough, rural town in search of the killers who murdered their family; there, they make some discoveries, all right--not just about the criminals, but also about their own damaged selves. This debut is not for the faint of heart--look for reviews that compare it to the work of Cormac (The Road) McCarthy. But it will grab you from the first line--“Elspeth Howell was a sinner”--and haunt you well past the discovery that Elspeth’s sins are both lesser and greater than you first thought. This is one profound and disturbing book from a writer to watch. --Sara Nelson