Slice of Cherry is set in a Portero, Texas known for supernatural activity. The town’s residents all wear black to avoid drawing the attention from the surrounding monster community. Residents are known to open doors to other realities. The Mortmaine, clad all in green, patrol the wild and dark places looking for monsters and protecting the local residents. The Cordelle sisters live here. Daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer, Kit and Fancy have discovered their own violent tendencies as their father awaits execution. Kit and Fancy find that violence relieves their anger. Kit, the more outgoing of the two, has a particular talent with a switchblade. After Kit and Fancy attend the annual wishing ceremony at the Juneteenth celebration in Cherry Glade, they discover the power of wishes. Fancy discovers she can open a door to an alternate reality: her “happy place”. This provides them a “safe place” to exercise their violent talents. But wishes granted can be fickle. “It’s okay to wish for things, but wishes are fragile, and the world we live in is very hard.’” The girls exorcise their demons by using their violent skills to help people in the community: taking out their vengeance on a man who aims to assault them, a man who abuses his son and wife, and others. As word spreads of their deeds, popular opinion of them changes. Throughout, the girls meet and develop relationships with two brothers, sons of their Bonesaw Killer father’s last victim. The boys are as secretive and troubled as the Cordelle sisters.
Full of fantastical creatures: flesh eating flamingos, monsters with bodies the consistency of yellow jello, demonic imps that infest through kisses; Slice of Cherry is a fantastical hero journey that tracks the transformation of Kit and Fancy from the broken isolated sisters at odds with everyone to young women who blossom and rejoin the community. Slice of Cherry requires a more mature readership. Violence and death permeate the book. But the violence isn’t the focus of this novel. The real focus is on the relationship between Kit and Fancy. It focuses on their need both to protect one another and heal their own brokenness. Readers who appreciate flawed characters who examine their flaws and rediscover better selves will revel in this read. “It’s not about being saints or sinners or good or bad, Fancy. It’s about being both. You know? About being complete.” Ultimately the sisters’ biggest risk isn’t in killing people, it is showing others “the real you” and opening themselves up to the risks of relationships in the real world. This book should be dark, dim and brutal but it is not. Instead, it is hopeful and thoughtful. It is a book that is a fun wild read. But it also lingers after you’ve finished. Once you get all the way through and think back, the symbolism unfolds like the moon flowers of the text, revealing more of the mystery.
