Book: Our Gifted Hearts by Jennifer Kennedy
Reviewed by Weird | weird.reads.books
Rating: 4/5
I wanted a book with a slow-blooming chill, and this debut delivered. Kennedy’s prose is smooth and assured from page one, equal parts lyrical and tense, and Fortune is an instantly empathetic heroine. If I didn’t have to be a responsible adult, I would’ve finished this in a single sitting; the chapters slip by like fog.
Fortune, an almost 26-year-old content-to-stay-spinster, is accused of witchcraft in her village. To avoid hanging, she reluctantly agrees to marry the charming stranger merchant passing through the village and is whisked away to a mansion on a remote island. The welcome is…complicated: a frosty housekeeper, an overly effusive mother-in-law, a watchful groundskeeper—and an island thick with omens. Fortune finds comfort in the birds she’s always been able to coax close, even as the house itself seems to close in. When she learns she’s not her husband’s first bride, curiosity curdles into dread and she’s forced to choose who to trust—if anyone.
This is a classic gothic novel with a Bluebeard-tinged French folktale twist and a current of feminine rage, all with a fresh heartbeat: salt-stung air, whispers behind doors, sanity in question. Even when you suspect where it’s headed, the momentum never lets up. Kennedy’s writing makes it an easy, eerie page-turner, and Fortune’s quiet resilience lends real warmth beneath the shiver.
I highly recommend this—especially for readers who love their thrillers with candlelit corridors and a feminist spine. 🐦⬛🥀
Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the ARC. All opinions are my own.