The Wailing Woman – Bow down to the Queen Bey of urban fantasy, Maria Lewis

A brand new title from the bestselling author of WHO’S AFRAID? Maria Lewis is reinventing ghosts, werewolves and witches with a contemporary, feminist twist. 

Good girls don’t talk back. Good girls don’t cry. Good girls don’t scream.

Sadie Burke has been forced to be a good girl her entire life. As a banshee, she’s the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the supernatural hierarchy. Weak. Condemned. Powerless. Silent. That’s what she and her six sisters have been told their entire lives, since their species was first banished from Ireland.

Yet when a figure from her childhood unexpectedly arrives on the scene, Sadie finds it harder than ever to toe the line.

Texas Contos is the son of their greatest oppressor. He’s also someone she’s inexplicably drawn to, and as they grow closer, Sadie begins to question what banshees have been told for centuries about their gifts.

But the truth comes at a cost. With Sadie and Tex forced to run for their lives, their journey leads them to new friends, old enemies, and finally to her true voice – one that could shatter the supernatural world forever.

Duffy’s Thoughts On The Wailing Woman

Since reading Who’s Afraid? and Who’s Afraid Too? and The Witch Who Courted Death, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on The Wailing Woman.

Each book focuses on a supernatural being, be it badass female werewolves with blue hair, witches who were driven underground after hundreds of years of persecution or, in this case, Banshee’s and curiously, shape-shifting wombats!

Author Maria Lewis clearly loves, lives and breathes this genre and it shows through the depth of her characters and how carefully they are all linked together. The Wailing Woman debuts Sadie and her six banshee sisters, along with a very lovable Tex, who’s family are her oppressors. As the suspenseful plot unfurls old characters and adversaries appear within the pages, and I loved being back amongst the supernatural, the Treize and the Askari.

I feel that Maria Lewis has really hit her stride with The Wailing Woman and I thoroughly enjoyed being between two worlds. Also, I’m a Sydneysider, so reading about all this supernatural shit going down in my own city was pretty cool too!

Can I call myself an urban fantasy fan? Probably not, but I am 100% a die-hard Maria Lewis fan and I fully support any book which has strong female characters which avoid overused tropes and cliches. I admire her not only as a great writer but my total hairspiration too!