Isabella's Reading Corner: In the Garden of Spite

In the Garden of Spite

Author: Camilla Bruce

Publication Date: January 19, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

In the Garden of Spite is historical crime fiction based on the shocking real life murderer Belle Gunness. Enter if you dare! 

Told from the perspectives of serial killer Bella and her sister Nellie, the story is a descent into the mind of a terrifying psychopath. Bella thinks only of herself and displays a callous disregard for human life. She’s completely devoid of any compassion and yet I couldn’t stop reading to see what she could possibly do next. The book started a little slow, but before long so much was happening my head was spinning and I couldn’t put it down. 

Highly recommended.

From the publisher:

An audacious novel of feminine rage about one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history--and the men who drove her to it.

They whisper about her in Chicago. Men come to her with their hopes, their dreams--their fortunes. But no one sees them leave. No one sees them at all after they come to call on the Widow of La Porte.

The good people of Indiana may have their suspicions, but if those fools knew what she'd given up, what was taken from her, how she'd suffered, surely they'd understand. Belle Gunness learned a long time ago that a woman has to make her own way in this world. That's all it is. A bloody means to an end. A glorious enterprise meant to raise her from the bleak, colorless drudgery of her childhood to the life she deserves. After all, vermin always survive.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on In the Garden of Spite here.