In the aftermath of a brutal sexual assault, Peach, a lovely young college student, is not coping. Numbly dragging herself home, she avoids her parents, showers off the evidence, then, incredibly, stitches up her wounds with needle and thread from her mother's sewing basket. She is unable to tell anyone what happened to her—not her loving but preoccupied parents, not her doting boyfriend, and certainly not the police. Almost immediately, though, she begins receiving creepy letters from her attacker, whom she also believes is stalking her. At the same time, her stomach begins to bloat and grow larger, although a pregnancy test comes back negative. While her increasingly odd behavior concerns her parents and friends, they are unable to understand what is happening to her. VERDICT Gorgeously written, this debut novel is a haunting prose poem with surreal overtones. Highly recommended.—Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Glass's fierce and mesmerizing debut straddles the line between fable and novel as it chronicles the effects of a sexual assault on a young woman by a depraved stranger named Lincoln. The book opens with teenage Peach walking home after the attack, battered and bruised. The lingering smells, sounds, and taste of the event are evoked in vivid detail: "charcoal breath," "burnt flesh," "crack crackly crackling" blood. Peach tells no one about what happened to her—neither her boyfriend, Green, nor her oversexed parents—and instead stitches her wounds up in the bath using a thread and sewing needle. In subsequent days, nightmares, hallucinations, and fear creep in alongside the evocative scent of roasting sausage and eerie sightings of Lincoln lurking in the woods near Peach's school. Peach relishes the comfort of Green's generous embrace while trying to ignore the psychological, emotional, and physical changes roiling within her. These surprisingly tender moments between Green and Peach offer respite from an otherwise challenging story as it leads up to its unforgettable twist ending. Making full use of metaphor, alliteration, and wordplay, Glass's remarkable prose stretches the boundaries of storytelling throughout, adding depth and strange beauty to this vital novel. (Jan.)