both playground and prison. Among the bushes and brambles, it offers places to hide from the rages of their war-scarred father, places that also become secret gardens of the imagination. Told over the course of two hot Virginia summers, Hula presents a child's-eye view of a family drama played out to a chilling climax. The younger sister narrates, introducing us to her older sister's ritual taunts, her mother's dreamy distance, her father's escalating temper. Lisa Shea's haunting first novel probes the dark place where adolescent fantasies and real terrors collide.

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