Author: bookishmk@protonmail.com

From Bindery Books, Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes is a sharp, haunting story of rage and sisterhood. Check trigger warnings, please.

Bullet points for those short on time:

• debut standalone thriller horror magical realism
• sisterhood, womanhood
• early 1900s Mississippi & the times’ perspectives of gender roles
• rage, power, memory, manipulation
• racism, sexism, misogyny

Publisher synopsis:

“A gripping blend of historical fiction and Southern gothic psychological horror, Our Sister’s Keeper is a fierce exploration of Black sisterhood, rage, and resistance.”

My summary:

Newlyweds, Kit and Thea, travel to a seemingly idyllic all-Black Free town in Mississippi to start a new life. However, the town’s ideal is only possible by sacrificing other childless, unmarried women (women who refuse to fit the mould, who question too much, who want for more) and making them carry men’s emotional burdens so their wives can be free to be as the men want, soft, carefree, and baby machines.

Marah is one of these women, trapped in a hellish nightmare. Yet, together with the other women in the same cage, she finds strength to survive and possibly even the hope of freedom…or revenge, if only she can remember who she is…and stop dulling her rage.  

Thoughts:

If you are looking for a book to make you stop scrolling, this is it. This was expertly written and edited. As horrifying and harrowing as it was, I didn’t want to put it down. The author’s skill in storytelling is clear!

There’s a lot of history and pain that is part of this book, so please check trigger warnings before opening. I think this is one of those books where you won’t be the same person after reading. It was brilliant, biting, and haunting.

Highly recommended. Let the rage go. Burn it all down.

Thank you to Bindery Books/Mareas/Marines for the eARC via NetGalley for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Content warnings:

Racism, sexism, misogyny, slavery, hauntings, torture, whipping, murder, death, severe gaslighting, psychological abuse, drugging, body horror, miscarriage, minor references to the bible/religion, and kidnapping.

About the Author:

I didn’t know this before I read the book, but from what I can find online, the author seems to be a strong evangelical. While the book has themes of outdated views on gender and familial roles, it appears to critique them with a feminist lens. Or at least paying respects to the trauma women have suffered at the hands of men, women who support said men, and systems/societal structures founded on and run by patriarchal ideologies. This and what I know of the beliefs of christians, seems contradictory to me at this time. I add this note for potential readers like myself who may seek to avoid triggers and content from such authors or about such topics.  

From the “Mother to Son Book” website: Jasmine L. Holmes has written for The Gospel Coalition, Desiring God, Fathom Mag, Christianity Today, and The Witness. She is also a contributing author for Identity Theft: Reclaiming the Truth of Our Identity in Christ and His Testimonies, My Heritage: Women of Color on the Word of God. She teaches humanities in a classical Christian school in Jackson, Mississippi, where she and her husband, Phillip, are parenting two young sons. They are members of Redeemer Church, PCA.

About the Publisher:

From Mareas led by Marines, Bindery Imprint.

Bindery:

“Bindery is a membership platform for tastemakers of the book world to cultivate community, champion the authors and stories that matter to them, and earn a sustainable income doing so from the most passionate members of their audience. Tastemakers with larger communities, upon invitation, may open a publishing imprint that surfaces new books by authors their communities will love. Bindery partners with the tastemaker to design their imprint brand, solicit submissions, and manage editorial, design, printing, publicity, and distribution everywhere books are sold.”

They offer a standard $10k advance and higher royalty rates relative to most traditional publishers.

Does Bindery’s contract include AI protections?
Yes. We believe strongly in the human arts of curation and creation and are here to support artists. We will never use AI-generated art, narration, or text in our books, nor will our materials be offered for machine learning. Our contracts reflect the Author’s Guild recommended protections in this area.

That being said by Bindery, their backer Baukunst invests heavily in startups and companies applying AI (71%). Do with this knowledge what you will. I will still support Bindery since the company doesn’t use AI and I want to see more of the books they are publishing out in the world. But, I will endeavor to support more other indie publishers that don’t have venture capitalist firms backing them which support AI use…

Also, Baukunst prides themselves the “high” number of female-founded startups at 43%. While this may be on the higher end of the industry, I would say, do better. With intention, this number could be 100% if a firm really wanted it to be. Also, they don’t mention other marginalised communities being backed or supported in their demographics, so is it mostly white founders they are supporting? Where are those stats of theirs? Of course, there’s always a reason why certain things are published, and others are not. I’ll leave it there.

Bindery is backed by Baukunst, a collective of creative technologists advancing the art of building companies at the frontiers of technology and design, along with strategic angel investors from the book publishing and tech worlds.