“As I wander through this dark and lonely forest of life, surrounded by various beasts…bears, vipers, squirrels, not to mention small tree growing lichen…”

41. The Devil’s Dance – Jan Alexander

So, this Satanic Gothic, despite the title, does not involve anything supernatural at all and that bothered me. It instead is about old family and racial feuds and the New York City woman who becomes caught in between them. And I had to look up the racial part because I hadn’t encountered the term “Melungeon” until I read it like 200 times in this book. When they mentioned someone being able to infiltrate a household and cause mischief because she had lighter skin and dyed her hair blonde, it finally struck me that this might be racial and this was not a supernaturally based term. Fine, but this was like the worst one of the Satanic Gothics I’ve read. The title is totally misleading too, it refers to some weird patchiness on a lawn and no one, no one was invited to it or saw one appear or anything. It did end up with sinkholes consuming the bitter rivalry and two families becoming intertwined, all thanks to the one New York City woman who decided to visit her sister in the middle of nowhere instead of going to Florida.

 

Merricat would like to remind everyone that it is also possible to be consumed by a sinkhole in Florida. Or a variety of beasts and impenetrable vegetation. Or moral quandaries.