Book Catalogue

The Savage Instinct

M.M. DeLuca

"DeLuca keeps readers guessing. Minette Walters fans will be pleased." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) for fans of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, this taut psychological thriller offers a delicious take on deviant and defiant Victorian women in a time when marriage itself was its own prison.  Deluca’s debut novel elegantly straddles psychological thriller and gothic horror, with first-person narration excelling on account of its depiction of psychosis.  BITING COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORY OF “HYSTERICAL” WOMEN: Clara Blackstone is a troubled, childless woman in an oppressive marriage, a character inspired by the author's research into the history of "mind doctors" and the brutal psychiatric treatment of women who were labeled hysterics unhinged by their failed reproductive systems. Deluca deftly conveys the savage subordination of women in the years leading up to the suffrage movement. Deluca’s expert reimagining of 1870s England transports the reader back in time, giving them a series of one-on-ones with the infamous serial killer.