**This blog contains adult language and description of...ahem...adult activities.**
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to have the story completely and utterly spoiled.
Book Description: What's full of ears and always listening? The Harvest Festival has come to Kern Creek again, and farm girl Maisie is excited to take in the sights, sample her favorite fall treats, and enjoy the evening. But when her out-of-control boyfriend Daniel crosses a line in a drunken rage, she flees into the dark of the cornfield to save herself. Exhausted, scared and somehow lost in the very fields she grew up exploring, the full moon reveals an unexpected addition to the stalks: a scarecrow she's never seen before. No mere decoration, old druidic magic has given the strange straw man – Corbin – a sentry's reprieve on equinox night. The dark bargain he offers in turn is as intoxicating as Old Man Walker's cider and twice as sweet – but will Maisie dare accept it?
📣TRIGGER WARNING📣: There is mention of domestic violence in this book. A woman is slapped and a man is punched. That's as deep into detail as I'm going to go, but if that will steal your peace, skip this recap.
The more light-hearted trigger warnings listed for this book include “corn-based penetration” and “pumpkin fucking”. So there's that.
This book was published in 2022 and this is my first time reading it. It's my third Vera Valentine book though. Both Squeak and Unhinged were recapped previously on this blog. Honestly, Valentine's writing is vastly better than most of the authors on this blog despite her bizarre subject matter. Plus, she's in on the joke which I appreciate. It's cringey when they're serious.
We begin with our protagonist Maisie searching the corn fields for her dog PeeDee. She's suffering from fall allergies or a cold or something and generally miserable as she treks through the mud. PeeDee eventually responds to her calls and she hauls him back to her farmhouse and then....takes a bath with him. Look, I get that you're both covered in mud and all and maybe you're trying to be environmentally friendly and conserve water but....don't take baths with your dog. It's just weird.
Also, Maisie's cold/allergies never get mentioned again. I don't know why Valentine bothered to include it only to abandon and forget it.
We learn that Maisie is one year out of high school and dating a man named Dan who drinks too much and yells at her a lot. He's also crazy jealous and always accusing her of flirting with other men. I feel like this one is obvious but I'm going to throw it up here anyway....
Maisie and PeeDee get out of the bath and start to dry off. Through the window, she thinks she sees something moving through the corn field. She takes a closer look but can see nothing except the tall stalks of corn. Maisie finishes drying off and goes to put on a sundress because Dan doesn't like women in pants. She looks in the mirror, “pleased at the sweet 21 year old country girl that greeted” her there.
Um.
What?
She just graduated from high school LAST YEAR and she's 21? Either Maisie had some issues and had to repeat several years or Valentine fucked up her timeline already.
Maisie accidentally puts on some red lipstick, mistaking it for her usual pink, and then decides not to change it. She finishes getting ready and then walks down to the Harvest Fest that's being held on Old Man Walker's land which is adjacent to hers. Dan's already there, drinking beer in the back of a truck. He sees her and immediately tells her to take the lipstick off because she looks like a “lot lizard working the damn grounds”. I'm just going to assume that translates to “sex worker”. He tells her he won't propose to a woman who can't look “respectable”. Suddenly Maisie isn't sure she wants to be proposed to. She tells him he's drunk and smelly. He's shocked at first and then drags her toward the cornfields and tells her not to talk to him that way and then slaps her.
Maisie is stunned. He's been mean and ugly before but he's never hit her. She'd convinced herself that he loved her to much to actually beat her. Dan looks scared for a few seconds but then blames it on her for riling him up and asks if she's going to behave or if he needs to hit her again. Maisie punches him right in the face and then takes off running through the cornfields.
Maisie spends an eternity being chased by Dan and two of his friends. They come close a few times but never catch her. She's cold and tired and her feet ache by the time they finally stop coming after her. She can see the lights from Harvest Fest in the distance but they feel too far away to make sense. The corn field isn't that big. She hears rustling and suddenly PeeDee appears. He was locked up in her house so she knows Dan went back there to look for her and let him out. Now she can't return home because Dan's probably there waiting for her.
Maisie starts to walk back toward the Fest, hoping to make contact with someone who will help her. The more she walks the farther it seems to get from her. She eventually decides to follow PeeDee, thinking he can lead her back. Instead, he leads her to a small clearing and a man in strange clothing. She asks the extremely handsome stranger if she needs to be worried about him and he smiles. He says she never needs to worry about him.
I mean, they all say that. Rarely does someone come straight out and tell you that they have sinister plans for you.
The man is tall and that makes Maisie feel safer. She tells him all about Dan hitting her and chasing her through the fields. Somehow, despite the fact she's standing still, she manages to trip over a rock and turn her ankle. He catches her and she notices he smells like hay. He calls her by name and she freaks out because she never introduced herself. He introduces himself as Corbin and says he's just passing through and will be gone by morning.
Maisie seems comforted by the news that he's some kind of drifter and doesn't demand to know how he knew her name. She asks him to walk her home, thinking Dan might not get violent with a witness around. She turns toward where the light from the Fest had been just a minute ago but there's only darkness now. She's confused and can't get her bearings.
Corbin gives her his jacket and says he'll walk her home. They start off through the fields but Maisie's feet are aching from running around in impractical boots. She keeps stumbling and eventually discovers that her feet are bleeding from blisters. Corbin offers to carry her. He hands her the Jack o'Lantern he's been carrying and cautions her not to drop it. She hooks a finger in the mouth of it to hold it and feels something lick her. She mentions it to Corbin and he says: “Jack doesn't mean any harm. He's just a gourd with too much of himself still inside.”
Okay then.
She asks him what that means and he says he can answer any question she has if she asks correctly. She can't figure out what that means either but tries adding a “please” to the question. He just shakes his head. She tries a bunch of different ways and then finally asks him how to ask correctly. He says: “With the voice of the one that claims me”. So she says she claims him. This makes him extremely happy.
They reach the house and Dan comes staggering out. Maisie begs Corbin to stop him. Corbin holds out his hand and vines come out of the ground, wrapping all around Dan and dragging him to the ground. Corbin calmly walks over to him and starts to drag him toward the cornfield. In the light from the house, Maisie can see strange stitches on the edges of Corbin's mouth and hay stuck in his hair.
Maisie follows Corbin through the corn and suddenly they're back at the clearing where she found him. She can't figure out how they got there so quickly. Corbin dumps Dan next to a post that Maisie realizes is an empty scarecrow post. She starts to put two and two together but gets distracted when six Jack o'Lanterns suddenly appear and light up the clearing.
Corbin turns to her and explains that he was created to be commanded by anyone who claimed him and his spirit is tied to the post. One night a year he's granted the ability to turn human. Lucky for her, it was tonight. He turns back to Dan and chastises him for being an asshole. He raises his arms and a strange power fills the air as a sickle appears in his hands. Maisie knows Corbin is going to kill Dan and, for some reason, she rushes to stop him. She asks him if they can punish Dan without actually killing him. Corbin agrees to consider it and Maisie kisses him.
Corbin likes the kiss and asks her if he can worship her. She likes the idea of that, so she says yes. He establishes a safe word in Irish and then uses his vine power to make a hammock chair on the scarecrow post for her to sit in. He makes a crown for her out of woven pumpkin leaves and puts it in her hair, calling her a goddess. Vines undress her as he kneels between her legs and....ahem.....gives the kitty a tongue bath (if you know what I mean).
Dan loses his mind. He tells Corbin that women are made for taking....ahem...roosters (if you know what I mean) and not for licking. He tells Maisie to let him go and he might forgive her for what she's done. Maisie tells him to fuck off and Corbin shoves some corn husks in his mouth to silence him.
Maisie decides she's ready for round two. She pushes Corbin to the ground and starts undressing him. He looks super alarmed which makes her hesitate and check in with him for his consent. He's all about it, but he's not packing the usual equipment. He tells her “the harvest made” him and is a part of him. She opens his pants to find “the silky sheath of a green corn husk” with the “pale yellow-gold” head just starting to emerge.
She's totally going to fuck his corn cob and that's not even a euphemism.
When they're done, Corbin and Maisie discuss what to do. She doesn't want him to be a scarecrow anymore because that would mean only seeing him once a year. Corbin tells her that someone will have to take his place as sentry to allow him to leave. She offers up Dan. Corbin privately tells her that the ceremony to turn Dan into a scarecrow involves fucking Jack. So Maisie goes to Dan and tells him she'll take him back and Corbin will release him if he fucks the pumpkin. He does. Now he's a scarecrow.
We skip some time. The town accepts that Dan has simply disappeared. Maisie mourns him for awhile and then hires a new farmhand named Corbin (now human but probably with a corn dick) to help her on the farm. Eventually they came out as a couple and the entire town accepted it without question. The book ends with Maisie telling us she has a new aversion to pumpkin pie.
I enjoyed this one less than Unhinged but I still like it better than Squeak.
Happy fall, y'all.
No comments:
Post a Comment