by K. Webster
First published 2022
Della's older sister has spent years making sure Della stays safe. That was the goal, the one thing worth holding onto. There was something else too, a quiet want she barely let herself think about, a brown-eyed man and a life that looked like peace. Both of those things are gone now. What replaced them is fear, sharp and constant, and a choice about what to do with it. She grew up watching her father use money and control like weapons. She learned how power works from the inside. That education did not make her obedient. It made her observant. Now, cornered and outmatched, she does not go quiet. She tests the people who think they have her. She pushes back. She uses whatever she has. The narrator of Death Wish knows the math is not in her favor. She knows what fighting costs. She does it anyway, not because she expects to win, but because going down without a fight is not something she can make herself do. That refusal, stubborn and a little reckless, is the engine of this book.
Genres: drama, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, thriller, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, gritty, intense, introspective, psychological, tense
Tropes: defiant-protagonist, family-secrets, trauma-recovery, unreliable-narrator
Period: 21st-century
324 pages · Paperback · Dangerous Press LLC
Content warnings: abuse, domestic-violence, emotional-abuse