Book Review: THE STILLWATER GIRLS by Minka Kent

Title: THE STILLWATER GIRLS

Author: Minka Kent
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Read: April 2019

Expected publication: 9 April 2019

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York. When the youngest grows gravely ill, their mother leaves with the child to get help from a nearby town. And they never return.

As months pass, hope vanishes. Supplies are low. Livestock are dying. A brutal winter is bearing down. Then comes the stranger. He claims to be looking for the girls’ mother, and he’s not leaving without them.

To escape, Wren and her sister must break the rule they’ve grown up with: never go beyond the forest.

Past the thicket of dread, they come upon a house on the other side of the pines. This is where Wren and Sage must confront something more chilling than the unknowable. They’ll discover what’s been hidden from them, what they’re running from, and the secrets that have left them in the dark their entire lives.

My musings:

I remember when I first picked up Minka Kent’s THE MEMORY WATCHER and thought – wow! This is an author I will have to look out for! As I had hoped, Kent drew me in immediately with her latest story. There is something totally irresistible about a crazy survivalist theme, and as soon as we meet the two girls Sage and Wren alone in their primitive cabin in the woods, anxiously waiting for their mother to return, I was hooked!

The story initially rolls out in two very separate narratives. Here we have the two young girls in the woods, fearing for their lives, and on the other side there is Nicolette, a wealthy but unhappy housewife living in a large mansion at the edge of the forest who is suspecting her husband of cheating on her. How are these two storylines ever going to intersect? I had a few theories and suspicions, which was half of the fun of reading this interesting tale. Kent’s writing flows easily, her characters come to life on the page and the whole premise was thoroughly intriguing.

I will tell you now that in a million years and with all the crazy conspiracy theories in the world, and after a few bottles of wine and perhaps smoking some green stuff, I would have never been able to guess the final reveal of this one! I do appreciate the pressure on authors to come up with a new, original premise and that “killer twist” that makes it into the “twister hall of fame”. Sometimes it works, and other times it pushes the boundaries a bit too far. This one fell into the latter category for me, but everyone knows that I am terrible at suspending disbelief. I think I would have preferred a more ordinary, boring plot, because the characters alone were enough for me to be intriguing and engaging. My jaw actually dropped when the story took a hairpin turn and went into the land of the implausible plotline.

But let’s focus on the things I really enjoyed: Kent’s writing. It flowed easily and carried me along, with characters that were intriguing and rounded. I loved the survivalist theme and the clash of worlds as the girls are being confronted with the commodities of 21^st century living after growing up in a primitive cabin in the woods without ever coming into contact with the outside world. I think that this theme could have been even more prominent and I would have devoured every page of it. Then there were the husband-wife dynamics between Nic and Brant. I disliked him and didn’t trust him - at all. There was something selfish and arrogant about this man who seemed to expect his wife to give up her life to support his career. There was great potential here also – all my emotions were fully engaged and on the side of the sisterhood!

Summary:

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed about 2/3 of this book until the bomb of implausibility dropped into the story and shattered my happy reading world. If you are a reader who prefers an evidence-based, traditional type of plot that ties up in a neat bow, then you may need to brace yourself and let go of that expectation. Readers that can shrug it off with “ah well, it’s fiction after all” will probably get much more out of this story than the doubting, eye-rolling Thomas that I am.

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review. And for the Traveling Sisters Group for yet another great group read and discussion!