A couple of months ago, I was contacted by Monica Ageno to review her newest children’s book. The Adventure of Little Bean featured as the first Dragon Adventure on my blog (review can be found here).
This time, I read Secrets & Ruin, a New Adult Suspenseful crime story. Thanks again for providing me with a review copy!
Secrets & Ruin
Set in Uganda, Secrets & Ruin introduces us to Winyo, a young woman who lives in a very strict community. As the only daughter of the family, she’s dedicating her life to chores, keeping open the family store and biking all over the place in order to do long-distance deliveries. This last one often gets her into trouble, as she’s not able to bike as fast as her mother wants her to. Every day is similar to the previous one, until the Odyek family returns to the village and she becomes fascinated by one of the sons, Guma. But rumours follow his family, as the mother is thought to be a witch connected to several unfortunate events. Then, one awful night, Winyo’s entire life changes and darkness starts growing inside of her. Can she survive a world in which secrets take over?
A true page-turner
I have to admit I binge read this novel. I was simply unable to put it down and it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The story is different from what I usually read and not at all predictable, so I just had to know how it would end.
The setting paints the life in a small African village in such a vivid way that I really felt as if I had been there myself. Mind you, this story is quite dark, explicit, and the emotions are very raw. The threat of some of the creepier characters feels very real. Definitely check out the trigger warnings below! I also LOVED how the book starts out with trigger warnings given by Guma himself:
Here is the deal, I am not a hero. I am not even the good guy in this story. I am practical. If someone stands in my way, I remove them. If something amuses me, I play with it. I am the assumed and feared wizard of this dreadfully backward village, where this unfortunate story occurs. This story contains violence, murder, and assault of the sexual nature. This world is a dark, savage place. A place where women are cruel and men are spineless bastards at best and depraved monsters at worst. Brace Yourself! Fate does tinker with surprises, so let’s dance shall we?
Now if that doesn’t set the scene, I’m not sure what will. As I couldn’t put this novel down, four out of five gemstones!
Age Category: For a mature audience
Representation: African setting, PTSD
Trigger Warnings (click here, may contain spoilers)
Explicit. Warnings for parental abuse & neglect, on page rape, self-harm, murder and misogyny.Do you want to discover more?
If my review inspired you to pick up the book, don’t hesitate to check it out at Goodreads or at the below online stores. If you decide to buy it via one of the following links, I will receive a small percentage at no extra charge for you!
Similar to this
If you liked Secrets & Ruin, I would also recommend The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna. That novel is for a much younger audience and isn’t at all as explicit as this one, but it starts out in a similar setting with similar misogynic behaviour. It’s a fantasy story, though, which introduces us to Deka, a girl who is shunned because she was not able to pass a village rite. In this rite, blood is spilled and hers turns out to be golden, which marks her as a demon…I did not finish this book in the end because I was unable to make a connection with the characters and the story itself, but I’ve read many positive things about it, so I will definitely revisit it later.
If you would like to explore similar concepts from another point of view, I would highly recommend Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, which is without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read in 2021. This is a NA Sci-fi novel set in world inspired by China. In this story, a young girl decides to fight back against the system that sacrifices women as if they were inconsequential and becomes one of the best pilots the world has ever seen. My review of this gem can be found here (don’t forget to check out the trigger warnings in that one either!).