Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett

I have no idea who put this book on the WHHS LMC wishlist via our online supplier.  When I threw a classic Mrs. W. tantrum and got a little money to buy books in October, it was added to the cart with the others.  It could've been my counterpart Mrs. Lynch or our amazing secretary Mrs. Taylor.  It could've been me and I just don't remember.  Either way, I'm glad it's part of our collection.

When it came out of the box, I saw the tagline "It's good to be afraid.  It means you still have something to live for."  The review snippets on the back sounded intriguing as well.  I thought, well, once it's ready to go on the shelf (after labels are stuck, it's stamped, and all that), I'll take it out.  And I did.

I read this in one Saturday afternoon while my husband washed the vehicles.  I couldn't stop turning the pages. 

A review on Amazon sums up the novel perfectly:
"Romeo and Juliet meets Children of the Corn"

Twins Ashlyn and Rhys Larkin are raised by a single non-working mother in New York City.  They attend a private high school.  Already you (if you are from the Northeast especially) are asking how does a single parent without a job hold an apartment in NYC and send her kids to a very elite prep school?

Nina, their mother, was raised on a commune in Kansas.  Yes, you read that right.  A commune in Kansas.  She apparently got pregnant at 17 and left.  We learn Ashlyn has visions, perhaps of a psychic nature, and that Nina believes in healing and protective tattoos.  She also has a patch of real grass growing in the middle of her room.

As the visions grow stronger, particularly of a dead girl who seems to be the victim of a hanging, Ashlyn returns home from school to find her mother gone and the apartment full of crows, which are a harbinger of death in pretty much all literature.  Ash and Rhys also find a suitcase full of gold, strangely adorned with the same symbols tattooed on the female twin.  Believing their mother has returned to the commune, they head for Kansas.

What follows is a tale of prophecy, destiny, choice, forbidden love, death, destruction, betrayal and redemption.  Ashlyn and Dane, her Romeo if you will, are beautifully tragic.  The ancient mythological tale of being granted immortality is tied into the Spanish conquistador Coronado and the Native American Indians of the Plains and the Southwest.

And of course, there is the the sinister, and I mean seriously sinister, cornfield of modern day horror.

Although I'm not usually big on cliffhangers, I hope there is a sequel.

Totally a recommend!

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