Delicate Creatures - by Kimi Cunningham Grant (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Delicate Creatures is a modern reimagining of Shakespeare's Othello set in rural Appalachia from Kimi Cunningham Grant.

Blue Hollow, West Virginia, 2005. Local journalist Britt has a terrible shock when she arrives at the home of her best friend, Des, to what looks like the remnants of a crime scene. Des, her son and her husband are all missing. Twenty years earlier, Ozias and his mother, Mari, arrive in the small town, hoping for a fresh start. The trouble is, the very white town of Blue Hollow isn't welcoming to two multiracial outsiders, except for Des, their young neighbor who lives up the mountain. Over time, Des and Ozias fall in love and dream of a life together, but when Ozias decides to join the army and is later deployed to Kuwait, Des eventually has no choice but to move on. Then, one night in 1992, Ozias returns to Blue Hollow, his homecoming marked by an act of violence.

Years later, when Britt makes her discovery at Des's house, the sheriff and the town are quick to tie Ozias to the crime scene, given his recent return to Blue Hollow and his history with Des. But Britt isn't so sure. After all, she has secrets of her own, one of which is a very good reason to suspect Des's husband, Damian, might be to blame. Britt isn't the only one hiding something, though, and as the search for answers heats up, a gripping drama unfolds. Blue Hollow is rife with secrets and preconceptions, and there are people in this town who will stop at nothing to keep the truth from coming to light.

Blending the coming-of-age story and exquisite nature writing of Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing, with the sophisticated narrative style of Liz Moore's The God Of The Woods, Delicate Creatures is a masterful multithreaded mystery, told in dual timelines, that powerfully explores race, deception, and longing.

Review Quotes

"Delicate Creatures is a put-everything-aside story about how a woman can be lost long before she disappears. Lush, fearless, and steeped in the rhythms of rural Appalachia, the novel marries the forward pull of a thriller with the aching depth of literary fiction. Shaped by a haunting mystery and a love story shadowed by regret, the breathtaking prose transports readers deep into Blue Hollow, a setting as dangerous and alive as those who inhabit it. Already beloved in the genre, Delicate Creatures earns Grant a place alongside Delia Owens and Liz Moore on the bookshelf of any literary thriller reader."--Sarah Crouch, USA Today bestselling author of Middletide and The Briars

About the Author

KIMI CUNNINGHAM GRANT is the USA Today bestselling author of the novels These Silent Woods, The Nature of Disappearing, and Fallen Mountains, as well as the memoir, Silver Like Dust. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and, in France, she won the and Prix Libr'à Nous and the Prix Découverte Polars Pourpres (2022). Before turning her attention to novels, Kimi wrote poems and nonfiction, and she is a two-time winner of the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Prize in Poetry and a recipient of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship in creative nonfiction. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family.