* Mesmerizing. Town & Country * Twisty and unsettling. People * Ancient Greece meets Succession by way of Emma Clinedeliciously dark. Ruth Gilligan *

A superbrefreshing (The New York Times Book Review) reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set on a lush private island, exploring themes of addiction and sex, family, independence, and who holds the power in a modern underworld.

Camp counselor Cory Ansel, eighteen and aimless, afraid to face her high-strung single mothers disappointment, is no longer sure where home is when the father of one of her campers offers an alternative. The CEO of a pharmaceutical company, Rolo Picazo is wealthy, divorced, and magnetic. He is also intoxicated by Cory. When Rolo offers her a job, Cory quiets an internal warning and allows herself to be ferried to his private island. Plied with luxury and the opiates manufactured by his company, she tells herself shes in charge. Her mother, Emer, head of a teetering agricultural NGO, senses otherwise. With her daughter seemingly vanished, Emer crosses land and sea to heed a cry for help that only she can hear.

Alternating between the two womens perspectives, Fruit of the Dead incorporates its mythic inspiration with a light touch and devastating precision. The result is a tale that explores love, control, obliteration, and Americas late-capitalist mythos. Lyons reinvention of Persephone and Demeters story makes for a haunting, electric novel that readers will not soon forget.