An excellent story and a creative world dreamed up by author Trevena. The reader can't help but empathize with the main character, Maeve, and her dire circumstances dealing with her evil Uncle Lou. Her tribulations are many, but so is her quick thinking. Maeve takes the cruelest acts against her and tries in her way to make them right. Revenge, but in a unique and twisted way. The descriptions of the people she meets, her friend, and the places she visits are deeply cultivated within the rich world that the author ables us to see and feel. The stairs leading up to a better place may not be the stairway to heaven after all. The winding plot gets thicker, as more revelations push Maeve into drastic situations requiring extreme measures. There is a lot of bad happening in this dystopian world, not only for Maeve. Still, there is hope, and the twist, in the end, will give hope. It also leads well into the next story. You'll want to pick up the next in the series. Well written and provoking book, I recommend you read the series. ( )

Maeve is orphaned after her mother is arrested because she was a seer. She is put under the care of her uncle, who runs an apothecary shop selling slum water as medicine in pretty bottles. Her uncle treats her miserably. She learns about the perfidy of her uncle and meets her father who is a nearby monk of a rather unsavory monastery. Both her uncle and father cannot resist the ladies of the night. Maeve vows vengeance after she learns her uncle initiated her mother’s arrest. Her father has remorse and sets up a refuge for abused and wayward women. But that doesn’t happen until a series of dramatic events take place. To reveal all that would be to spoil the intrigue of this horror story. Very well done…

I received an electronic copy in return for an honest review. ( )