- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books (Dec 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0765301946
- ISBN-13: 978-0765301949
- Product Dimensions: 21.5 x 14.8 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,295,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Publishers Weekly, November 18, 2002 pg.46
Frost neatly counterbalances the underlying threads of curiosity and disobedience with the growing awareness of true evil in Fitcher...a timeless story.
BOOKPAGE DECEMBER 2002
Gregory Frost’s finely detailed chiller will stay with the reader for a long time.
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First Sentence
THEY CLIMBED THE GANGPLANK to the steamboat, the three Charter sisters. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
THEY CLIMBED THE GANGPLANK to the steamboat, the three Charter sisters. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
"Fitcher's Brides" is a mixture of "Bluebeard" and "Fitcher's Bird", which both have the motif of a rich man marrying a younger woman and isolating her from everyone in his amazing home, then leaving her with the keys to all the rooms, except one, which she must not enter.
The three Charter sisters - Vernelia, Amy and Kate - have been uprooted from their comfortable life in Boston by their father and stepmother, and taken to the religious community of Jekyll's Glen, ruled over by the prophet Fitcher. The community believes that the world will be ending in the summer of 1843 and Vernelia is swiftly chosen by Fitcher as his bride, so he can enjoy the comfort of matrimony before the world ends. When Vernelia disappears, he then marries Amy. When Amy disappears, Kate becomes suspicious. Are the disappearances anything to do with the strange spirit that has been haunting their house? What is the glass pyramid at the top of Fitcher's house for? And why are there so many empty rooms full of women's clothing?
This book earned my admiration, not only for managing to be gorier than the original, but for actually addressing the issue of menstruation, which still seems to scare off most male writers. Frost transforms this story into a meditation upon religion, upon faith and fanaticism and sisterhood, which is both gripping and disturbing.
The three Charter sisters - Vernelia, Amy and Kate - have been uprooted from their comfortable life in Boston by their father and stepmother, and taken to the religious community of Jekyll's Glen, ruled over by the prophet Fitcher. The community believes that the world will be ending in the summer of 1843 and Vernelia is swiftly chosen by Fitcher as his bride, so he can enjoy the comfort of matrimony before the world ends. When Vernelia disappears, he then marries Amy. When Amy disappears, Kate becomes suspicious. Are the disappearances anything to do with the strange spirit that has been haunting their house? What is the glass pyramid at the top of Fitcher's house for? And why are there so many empty rooms full of women's clothing?
This book earned my admiration, not only for managing to be gorier than the original, but for actually addressing the issue of menstruation, which still seems to scare off most male writers. Frost transforms this story into a meditation upon religion, upon faith and fanaticism and sisterhood, which is both gripping and disturbing.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
The Brides of Death
18 Nov 2004
Format:Paperback
A widower, with a little help from his cold-hearted new wife, has fallen under the spell of Elias Fitcher, an apocalyptic preacher who predicts the world will end within the year. Packing up all his earthly belongings, and his three daughters--romantic Vernelia, neurotic Amy, and practical, skeptical Kate--he and his wife move to a tiny village in upstate New York to await the end of days. There, the charming, charismatic, and utterly horrifying Fitcher takes a shine to Vernelia, and sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind courtship.
It says on the very cover that it's a Bluebeard story, so I'm not spoiling much to say that Vernelia goes mysteriously missing, and Fitcher then marries Amy. When Amy, too, vanishes, it's up to Kate to find out what has happened and stop Fitcher's horrible spree. There's a storm brewing, of course, and the plot goes from atmospherically creepy to nail-biting as the storm rises to fever-pitch. I could have sworn I heard thunder when I discovered Kate's middle name, when she stood up to him as no one had previously done, when she raced against time to stop him from adding her to his collection. Does she survive? Read and see.
Gregory Frost here gives us an unforgettable rendition of one of our darkest fairy tales, a heroine to root for, and a truly terrifying villain. An added bonus is Terri Windling's introduction. Her introductions are always a treat, but she's getting even better, as evidenced first by the fascinating one for White as Snow, and now by the essay she wrote for this novel. She points out, most interestingly, that Perrault's famous version blames Bluebeard's murders on his wives' curiosity and disobedience, but that the older version give us heroines, like Kate, who save themselves by their willingness to question authority and look for answers.
It says on the very cover that it's a Bluebeard story, so I'm not spoiling much to say that Vernelia goes mysteriously missing, and Fitcher then marries Amy. When Amy, too, vanishes, it's up to Kate to find out what has happened and stop Fitcher's horrible spree. There's a storm brewing, of course, and the plot goes from atmospherically creepy to nail-biting as the storm rises to fever-pitch. I could have sworn I heard thunder when I discovered Kate's middle name, when she stood up to him as no one had previously done, when she raced against time to stop him from adding her to his collection. Does she survive? Read and see.
Gregory Frost here gives us an unforgettable rendition of one of our darkest fairy tales, a heroine to root for, and a truly terrifying villain. An added bonus is Terri Windling's introduction. Her introductions are always a treat, but she's getting even better, as evidenced first by the fascinating one for White as Snow, and now by the essay she wrote for this novel. She points out, most interestingly, that Perrault's famous version blames Bluebeard's murders on his wives' curiosity and disobedience, but that the older version give us heroines, like Kate, who save themselves by their willingness to question authority and look for answers.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A fairy tale for grown-ups.
21 Aug 2003
Format:Hardcover
The Bluebeard legend sliced, diced and transplanted to the 19th century in the "burned-over land," that section of upstate New York from which were born the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists and other modern religious cults. Frost takes this somewhat forbidding fantasy landscape to the edge of gothic horror for a tale that is really about female empowerment: how long will we suffer from monstrous evil before SOMEBODY fights back? The fight is worth the wait, and the gruesome details leading to it. Clever readers will see that Frost is using the story to analyze why it is that the intolerance and xenophobic hatred that powers the mindless fanaticism of an era that, for all its historical trappings, seems curiously contemporary. For fans of Frost's short but very accomplished body of work, this novel is a definite joy. Frost is writing at the peak of his powers: literate, intelligent fantasy doesn't get much better than this.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Yet another grand re-visioning of a classic fairy tale.
16 Dec 2002
Format:Hardcover
Terri Windling's Fairy Tale Series never disappoints. Author Frost here creates a vivid and accurate, if bleakly creepy milieu for his take on Bluebeard. The millennial fervor of mid-19th century America is fascinating in itself and Frost elucidates as he entertains. His characterizations are apt, although I was at first discomifited by his descriptions of the sexual de-flowering of his three protagonists; eventually, it all fits and is entirely appropriate. The story of Bluebeard has always been an ugly for me and it's no less so in this re-telling. Some very engaging and aptly retro prose.
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