The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel
*Starred Review* Somewhere in the deepest, wildest part of America, there is a place called Roam. Once a thriving mill town founded by unscrupulous silk merchant Elijah McCallister, it is now a virtual ghost town. Of the few people remaining, none are more curious than Helen and Rachel McCallister, Elijah’s great-granddaughters. Like sisters out of the Brothers Grimm, they are as different as chalk and cheese. Rachel is beautiful, trusting, kind, and blind. Helen is as hideous inside as she is out, a vindictive harpy whose shrewish behavior and tortured visage isolate her in self-imposed exile. So jealous is she of her sister’s beauty that, after their parents die and Rachel is left solely in her care, Helen vengefully tells the most vicious lies to keep Rachel in her thrall: that Rachel is ugly; that the world is a gothic and dangerous place; that no roads lead into or out of Roam. Like a maiden princess locked in the witch’s castle, Rachel accepts her fate until the day she discovers she can orchestrate her escape. Teeming with dwarfs and giants, feral dogs, and wily spirits,  Wallace’s eerie fairy tale for grown-ups is a melancholy yet enchanting pastiche of love, loss, redemption, and revenge. --Carol Haggas