Review: Vanessa and Janey two main voices in this island tale. Her nuanced characters and honest examination of the crueler sides of human nature establish her as a formidable author in the vein of Shirley Jackson and Margaret Atwood (Publishers Weekly) Kirkus (starred review Melamed’s haunting and powerful debut blazes a fresh path in the tradition of classic dystopian works…a searing portrayal of a utopian society gone wrong…Melamed’s prose is taut and precise. Fearsome, vivid, and raw: Melamed’s work describes a world of indoctrination and revolt.” Hopefully, her debut is a harbinger of more to come. This is a haunting work in the spirit of The Handmaid’s Tale–but Melamed more than holds her own. Kate Hamer, author of The Girl in the Red Coat “Melamed is a masterful writer, and she establishes a hauntingly vivid atmosphere…. Library Journal (starred review) “An intriguing, gorgeously realized and written novel which inexorably draws you into its dark heart.” This beautifully and carefully constructed work pulls no punches in its depiction of a bleak future it will attract fans of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and readers who enjoy horror, suspense, and dystopian fiction.”

A remarkable debut.”?Edan Lepucki, author of California and Woman No. This is a lush, vivid and chilling novel. Joshua Gaylord, author of When We Were Animals “In Gather the Daughters, girls and women face a world that is brutal, insidious, and unjust–and yet, hope and resilience persist. Forget your conventional coming-of-age morality tales–this book is about the gory transition from girlhood to womanhood and how difficult it is to balance animal instinct with the pragmatism of endurance. The young girls in this story are both victims of violence and perpetrators of it. In her extraordinary first novel, Melamed pulls no punches. An heir to the speculative creations of Margaret Atwood and Shirley Jackson, Gather the Daughters is a darkly compelling read.”- Helene Wecker, New York Times bestselling author of The Golem and the Jinni “Set on an enchanted island where magic is replaced by Freudian nightmare, Gather the Daughters is an eerie, claustrophobic tale in the spirit of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Grimm’s fairy tales. Melamed paints the joys and anxieties of girlhood with visceral force as the puzzle deepens and consequences multiply. Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed : Praise: “Lyrical and ferocious, Jennie Melamed’s Gather the Daughters follows the young daughters of an isolated society who start to question the truths of their world. Genre: Dystopia, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction.

Jennie melamed