Scarecrow by Richie Tankersley Cusick

 

Richie Tankersley Cusick was one of those Point Horror authors from the YA horror boom of the 80s and 90s. I've been gradually working my way through her whole backlist and her YA titles hold up surprisingly well, but the real gems in her collection are her two adult titles, BLOOD ROOTS and SCARECROW.

The titles and covers are very similar to her YA books, even more so in the rebrand, where it seems like the new publisher is trying to keep all her work in the same theme. However, BLOOD ROOTS and SCARECROW contain some very dark themes that would not be appropriate for really young kids. Like, at all. BLOOD ROOTS is like an old skool V.C. Andrews book set in the South, and SCARECROW is kind of like a disturbing cross between Midsommar and Wickerman, with a dash of messed up family drama.

Less is definitely more going in but basically, Pamela Westbook is newly widowed and lost her child in the same car accident that killed her husband. While driving to St. Louis from California, she gets lost in the Ozarks and then she has a car accident of her own. When she wakes up, her memory is super patchy and she's at the house of this super weird family, the Whittakers.

There's Seth, the gruff patriarch who knows more than what he's willing to reveal. There's Rachel, the godly and silently suffering wife with dark secrets. There's Franny, Rachel's much younger sister who's practically going crazy with the need to sow her wild oats (we won't talk about her relationship to scarecrows). There's Micah, Seth and Rachel's oldest son who comes and goes and is missing a hand. And then there's Girlie, the youngest child, who allegedly has some kind of "Gift."

Their house is super rustic. They house an outhouse with magazine toilet paper and grow and sow everything they eat and drink. It's claustrophobic and quaint... except for the scarecrows. Every year, they set up five scarecrows, and at the end of the season, they burn them. But this year, Franny's decided to hold hers back. And when the scarecrows don't burn, things go WRONG.

(I should totally write blurbs.)

I really liked this book a lot. It was weird and got kind of depressing, but as with BLOOD ROOTS, it had really solid atmosphere and kind of played out like one of those old 70s occult horror movies. I also really liked Pamela as a character. She was damaged and obviously super creeped out, and I think the author did a really good job showing how so much of the horror was in her own paranoia and fears of the unknown as she's literally trapped in the middle of the woods with the creepy family.

Also, wow! What a reveal. I'm still reeling.

4 to 4.5 out of 5 stars