The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael
In 1853 South Carolina, Lillian Carmichael faces the noose for the murder of her sister. Though Lillian is innocent, it makes no difference now; her fate is sealed. But on the day of her hanging, she collapses, and when she wakes, she is in a coffin. Somehow, she’s not dead. How? After she manages to claw her way out and escape the family mausoleum, Lillian tries to make sense of her terrifying new reality. She is still a wanted woman, after all. Worse, someone is murdering women in Charleston, and many think Lillian is to blame. She finds refuge on an island across the river and after injuring herself, lands in the arms of the handsome Dr. Alexander Mayhew who lives on the island. But he is not all that he seems. The longer Lillian stays at his plantation house, the more secrets she begins to uncover.
While I normally love Paulette Kennedy’s works, I struggled with this one. Lillian makes odd and even ridiculous choices (as a city girl born and bred, I’m not sure how she thinks she could survive in the wilderness). The story also feels overly complicated with too many plot threads (including the serial killer as a supposed vampire), as though Kennedy couldn’t quite decide what the book should be about. Though Kennedy’s prose is, as always, a pleasure to read, the story itself fell flat for me.
