Book Review: Rotten Peaches by Lisa de Nikolits
Rotten Peaches is a gripping epic filled with disturbing and unforgettable insights into the human condition. Love, lust, race and greed. How far will you go? Two women. Two men. One happy ending. It takes place in Canada, the U.S. and South Africa. Nature or nurture. South Africa, racism and old prejudices — these are hardly old topics but what happens when biological half-siblings meet with insidious intentions? Can their moral corruption be blamed on genetics — were they born rotten to begin with? And what happens when they meet up with more of their ilk? What further havoc can be wreaked, with devastating familial consequences?
Thoughts on the Text
Written with brutal transparency, Rotten Peaches reveals the side of humanity so many want to remain hidden.While taking place across three continents and told from alternating points of view, Rotten Peaches touches on themes that most shy away from - love, lust, race, and greed...nature vs. nurture.
I was pulled in from the first few pages, succumbing to intrigue and self-recognition. The story and the world between the pages unearthed "the muddy bedrock” of my hermetic life and made me really ponder my life and unhealthy behaviors. I identified with each character in different ways, thanks to Lisa’s ability to describe each character in a way that made me wonder if I knew them (or someone like them).
Leonie...was real! It was refreshing to read about a completely imperfect character. It made her easy to understand and identify with.
Bernice...professional and fierce.
Gerstein, while a minor character, provided a unique insight into the human experience of happiness.
Filled with serious introspective dialogue and mind-bending confessions, certain chapters will cause even avid noir pulp fiction readers to fall open-mouthed.
Human behavior is so complex. The attempt to understand the myriad of reasons why maladaptive behaviors are so alluring, often leading to lifestyle dysfunction, is enormously difficult to achieve. But, fiction, in all of its glory and power, has the ability to help achieve this understanding. Between psychosocial and socio-cultural factors, the reasons for the allure are innumerable. But, from the perspective of flawed humans, Rotten Peaches gracefully touches on the fundamental nature of all addictive behavior.
For some, this content may be dark. But, where I come from, this is real stuff. Women are real, flawed, co-dependent, and brutally honest. Things happen that were never thought possible and, more importantly, were never desired. Falling prey to lust, greed, and addiction is possible for anyone.
Rotten Peaches, though dark, gritty, and raw, is definitely a book I recommend to readers who are seeking fiction that will stimulate discussion.
Read an Excerpt of Rotten Peaches
I am not a killer. I just fell in love with the wrong man. I went too far this time, and there’s no going back. There’s no going anywhere, period. I nearly stayed afloat, but my luck ran out. Luck, that mystical mythical glue that holds the shards of despair together and makes life navigable. But fragmented despair, that’s what sinks you.
It’s the middle of the day and the ghost of a cat walks across my bed. I am hidden in the downy softness of bleach-laundered sheets, sheets ironed with starch and cleansed of their filthy sins by scalding Catholic water.
The bed is high and wide and the pillows are like clouds ripped from a summer’s sky. I bury my head in cotton balls, puffy meringues and whipped cream, and try to ignore the ghost of the cat that is walking the length of my back.
The cat settles at my feet but it gets up again and pads along my legs. When it first started its prowl, I sat up and reached for it but, like all ghosts, it immediately vanished and waited for me to turn away before settling in a warm, heavy lump against my side. Its weight is comforting in a way, like being massaged by the hand of God, but it isn’t God. It can’t be,because God, like luck, has left the building of my life.
*** Excerpt from Rotten Peaches by Lisa de Nikolits.
Copyright © 2018 by Lisa de Nikolits.
Reproduced with permission from Lisa de Nikolits.
All rights reserved.
Rotten Peaches Trailer:
Bonus Content!
In addition to Lisa's amazing new thriller, she's also released a new cookbook - Bake Your Way To Happiness
. To celebrate she's sharing the recipe for one of the South African desserts mentioned in Rotten Peaches!Check out the Melk Tert Recipe!
About the Author
Lisa de Nikolits picture credit Richard Picton
Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits has lived in Canada since 2000. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain.
Her seventh novel, No Fury Like That
will be published in Italian, under the title Una furia dell'altro mondo, in 2019. Previous works include
The Hungry Mirror
,
West of Wawa
, A Glittering Chaos
, Witchdoctor’s Bones
; Between The Cracks She Fell
and The Nearly Girl
.Lisa lives and writes in Toronto and her very new book, Rotten Peaches is hot off the press to reader and literary acclaim. Lisa a member of the Sisters in Crime, Toronto Chapter, Sisters in Crime, Mesdames of Mayhem, The International Thriller Writers.
