Meet Mad Mabel
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years--longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.
When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie's past start coming to light. Who was "Mad Mabel" fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?
Told with Sally Hepworth's twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is a novel that weaves past and present together--through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.
I took a break from reading horror when I was invited to read the newest Sally Hepworth, because I have enjoyed the four books I have read by her previously. In my opinion, this is her best work so far. Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is 81 years old and living a quiet life on a peaceful street in a friendly neighborhood. She's also keeping a secret. When she was fifteen years old, she was tried and convicted of murder. Was she really guilty? Was the nickname Mad Mabel that the other kids tormented her with throughout her childhood valid? When one of her nosy neighbors starts trouble, it puts everyone's safety at risk.
The majority of the book is an amusing read full of Elsie's sarcastic wit and sardonic, biting humor, which is a welcome relief since it is interspersed with her tellings of the events of her traumatic past. Suddenly, around the 90% mark, I had my heart ripped out near the unexpected climax and conclusion. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a grandma like Elsie, and Elsie deserved far better than the childhood she got. Blamed by her father for a multitude of sins that were never her fault, he encouraged the cruelty and ridicule that she suffered. She felt so real to me I wanted to go back in time and give her a hug. This is a book with all the feels. 5 stars doesn't seem like enough for this well-crafted tale.
My thanks to St. Martin's Press for the e-ARC
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