Favorites Book Review : "Serena" by Ron Rash

A few years ago I started a book club called "Get Drunk and Read". (We were a pull no punches kind of book club). The book club didn't last for very long, but I think this book is our legacy.When we read this book it was universally loved. 

George Pemberton is a lumber baron in the making. The forests of North Carolina are falling beneath his companies saws and George enjoys his privileges as boss man and fathered an illegitimate child. However, he goes up to Boston and meets a woman named Serena who he wifes after a pretty short time. Serena is ambitious,smart, efficient and beautiful. She's everything that George needs in a business and life partner.

(because hooray for deforesting efficiently?)

However, Serena is also a bit unhinged. But we will get to that in a minute.

Things are going just as planned for the couple, until tragedy strikes and they realize they will always be childless. This has a profound psychological effect on Serena (we are building this empire and we won't have a son to give it to and carry on the family name!?) and this where the unhinging begins. This tragedy softens George's feelings towards his only living child but it makes Serena hard and calculating.Mysterious things start happening around camp and people start dying in mysterious accidents and things get very much out of hand.

It concludes with a huge, shocking twist and an amazing epilogue. I can't even emphasis how much you should NOT skip the epilogue.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars.The characters (all of them, not just George and Serena) are interesting and deep.The descriptions of the countryside and the logging camps are detailed and vivid. (Ron Rash lives in North Carolina, this is his backyard,he knows what's up.) Towards the end of the book my heart was in my throat the whole time, very high tension!


Another reason you should read this book, and maybe the most important of all, is that this is being made into a movie that starts filming next year. Starring.....wait for it....Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.
So now you can be the person who knows how awesome this movie will be before it even HAPPENS.

God help them if they mess up that movie. The members of "Get Drunk and Read" will find them.