There's something out there that's killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don't know when to shut up.
Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can't share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she's seeing. And not her mother―the infamous Caroline Sawyer, an artist whose eerie sculptures have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice―until she is punished for using it―not knowing that the same malevolent force preyed upon her mother fifteen years ago.
As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Unsettling to the bone and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.
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There was blood in the water - a dull pink bloom - the morning Lila Sawyer heard about the first missing girl.- CHAPTER 1, LILA 2019
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(@TitanBooks, 10 January 2023, e-book, 321 pages, copy from the publisher via @ NetGalley)
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I liked Such a Pretty Smile a lot. I love horror fiction and this was right up my street. I liked the way the chapters move between present wile Lila struggling to control the dark forces she feels stirring inside her and Caroline's past showing how the forces threatening to destroy Lila did the same to her. There is plenty of suspense and tension and events built in crescendo leading to a confrontation between present and past. This is a rollocking read.
