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Book Review of Serena

Serena
Serena
Author: Ron Rash
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
shukween avatar reviewed Harsh and Powerful on + 118 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


Serena relates the story of a fictional 1920's 'power couple', engaged in the strip logging business in Western North Carolina. They appear to have met serendipitously in Boston, and the novel opens with a brutal murder scene....and continues on from there. One only begins to suspect the true point of the novel very late in it, and the end hits the reader like a freight train.

Serena is intensely and well-written; the prose is spare yet aggressive and powerful. This is no bucolic, touristy-with-a-happy-ending novel. I recommend it highly.