To the Bone

June 17, 2024
Bruzas (Ever Since) interweaves real-life U.S. history with brutal horror elements to craft a grotesque reimagining of the founding of America set in 1609 James Fort. Teenage Ellis thought that becoming an indentured servant to the wealthy Collinses would be her ticket to freedom. Instead, she witnesses the collapse of both her employer’s family and the fledgling society they live in. Conditions within James Fort have worsened as the colonizers wage war on the Indigenous population, Master Collins is physically abusive toward Ellis and his pregnant wife, and the protections promised to Ellis by
Collins seem much more tenuous than she had anticipated. When she meets Jane, the daughter of the nearby Eddowes family, she falls hopelessly in love and dreams of a future in which she owns land and can be with Jane freely. But as winter approaches and a haze of desperation and hunger descends upon James Fort, things take a turn for the worse. Meandering descriptions of Ellis’s everyday life are occasionally repetitive. Nevertheless,
via first-rate prose, Bruzas seeds pockets of tenderness, warmth, and romance throughout, lending emotional weight to the unfolding horrors. An author’s note concludes. Characters are white. Ages 14–up.

Starred review from July 15, 2024
A young woman goes hungry--and falls in love--in the Virginia Company's colony of James Fort. The year is 1609, and Ellis has traveled alone across the ocean from England to be an indentured servant to Henry Collins. She's come to seek a better life, her family back home fractured by death and poverty, but she soon learns that this land is no undiscovered Eden, ripe for the taking. Tensions are rising between the Indigenous Powhatan people and the invading European settlers, and the cruelty of claim-laying extends to Ellis' own hearth, where Henry treats her as property and abuses both her and his pregnant wife. Meanwhile, winter draws ever closer, and with it the specter of starvation. A bright light in all this darkness is Jane, a spritely young woman who loves Ellis fiercely and shamelessly. Ellis loves her, too--as secretly as she can, given Henry's violent disapproval. The two are friends with Rowan, a deeply kind young man who's come to the settlement alone; he's their companion in misadventure as they seek sustenance and survival. Bruzas pulls no punches with her lean, lyrical prose. Ellis' voice is entirely convincing, her quiet observations of people and situations around her perfectly embedded in her own experiences even as they elucidate for a contemporary audience the brutal harm done by her settlement. Ruthless and tender by turns: a triumph of historical fiction. (content note, author's note, end note, select bibliography)(Historical fiction. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2024

Gr 9 Up-By combining historical and archaeological facts with a compelling love story, Bruzas has created a powerful, engaging tale that illuminates social, economic, and moral lines in colonial America. When Ellis arrives at James Fort as an indentured servant, it is 1609, and she is desperately hoping to find her father. Instead, she finds love with the beautiful Jane Eddowes while trying to survive her brutal employer Henry Collins. As relations between the colonists and the Native Americans deteriorate during the fall of 1609, food grows increasingly scarce. When winter truly sets in, Ellis becomes trapped within the fort as the hunger and subsequent death count swells. It becomes truly horrifying once the bodies start disappearing. Bruzas skillfully uses the weather to set the mood, while building believable and empathetic primary and secondary characters through connected relationships and events. The main character presents as white and LGBTQIA+. Bruzas includes a detailed author's note as well as select bibliography for further information in the back matter. VERDICT Hand this title to fans of Tracy Smith's First Lady of Jamestown and Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds. A general purchase for high school libraries.-Susan Catlett

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2024
Grades 10-12 From its first pages, Bruzas' (Ever Since, 2023) tragic, brutal historical novel is steeped in hunger, fear, and yearning. In summer 1609, teenager Ellis arrives in the New World as an indentured servant to an abusive man, Henry Collins, and his pregnant wife. At first, Ellis is glad to be at James Fort. She desperately wants to be good, but her growing desire for Jane, a carefree girl who returns her affection, is taboo. The crops fail, and their supply ship goes missing. An uneasy relationship with the Indigenous "country people" devolves into massacres on both sides; as winter arrives, the country people lay siege to the fort. Quickly, those inside begin starving to death. Everyone except Henry. What is his secret? Bruzas anchors her story firmly in the historical record. Her writing is spare, even elegant, using repetition and sensual, visceral descriptions to inspire dread and hope in turn as circumstances reveal each character's true nature. Despite its slow pace, this macabre novel will lead readers to a fresh fascination with colonial history.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.