The Cherry Robbers (Paperback)

Sarai Walker, the author of the “slyly subversive” (Entertainment Weekly) cult-hit Dietland pays homage to the Gothic tradition of Shirley Jackson with this riveting, deliciously twisted feminist tale about a cursed family of sisters, and the lone survivor whose time may finally be up.

 “Sarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal.”—Maria Semple

It should have been the first day of the rest of their lives.

Instead it was the last.

Iris Chapel and her five elegant sisters, heiresses to the Chapel firearms fortune, live cloistered in the family’s lavish Victorian mansion. Neglected by both a distant, workaholic father and a mentally troubled mother—who believes their home is haunted by the victims of Chapel weapons—the sisters have grown up with only each other for company. They long to escape the eerie fairy tale of their childhood and move forward into the modern world, but for young women in 1950s Connecticut, the only way out is through marriage.

Yet it soon becomes clear that for the Chapel sisters, marriage equals death.

When the eldest sister walks down the aisle, tragedy strikes. The bride dies mysteriously the very next day, leaving her family and the town in shock. It is the first in a chain of disasters that will make each woman wonder whether true love will kill her, too. Only Iris, the second youngest, finds a way to break free. But can she outrun the family curse forever?

Building off the Gothic tradition of Shirley Jackson, Sarai Walker brings to life this riveting, deliciously twisted feminist tale, a gorgeous and provocative page-turner about the legacy of male power and the cost of female freedom.