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Gwendolyn Kiste

The Rust Maidens Hardcover – November 16, 2018

by Gwendolyn Kiste (Author)

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Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.

It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens” in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.

Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.

Print length

254 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Trepidatio Publishing
Publication date

November 16, 2018
Dimensions

6 x 0.69 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1950305112
ISBN-13

978-1950305117
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Mark Z. Danielewski
9,693
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Alma Katsu
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Gwendolyn Kiste
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Kathe Koja
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T. Kingfisher
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Trepidatio Publishing (November 16, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 254 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1950305112
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1950305117
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.69 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,092,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34,431 in Horror Literature & Fiction
- #47,507 in Women's Literature & Fiction
- #52,108 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
191 ratings

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Gwendolyn Kiste

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Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Invention of Ghosts. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vastarien, Tor's Nightfire, Black Static, The Dark, Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, and LampLight, among others. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, two cats, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

191 global ratings

5 star		53%
4 star		26%
3 star		14%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

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Megan

Heavily atmospheric. Will enchant you with beautiful prose & tear you apart with its tragic story.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 21, 2023

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Phoebe hasn’t been home in years, but she’s drawn back to her working class, Rust Belt town to strained family relationships and a haunted past, which pulls at the edges of everything she sees. Toggling between the present, when the town must finally face its obsolescence, and the past, a 1980s coming of age tale complete with terrible transformations and the horrors restrictive communities bestow upon young women, this heavily atmospheric book will enchant you with Kiste’s beautiful prose and tear you apart with its tragic, terrifying story.

Helpful

M. Castle

An amazing, engrossing weird fiction story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 25, 2019

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Warning: Mild Spoilers

Gwendolyn Kiste’s Bram Stoker award-winning debut novel The Rust Maidens (published by Trepidatio Publishing) is a book, at its core, about life, stubbornness, blame, growth and acceptance, weaved in a such a wonderful way that it’s more than what it truly is: an amazing, engrossing weird fiction story.

Phoebe has returned to Cleveland after nearly two decades to help her mother pack, before her dilapidated childhood home is demolished. The street she grew up on is not what it was when he left. Houses are being torn down, machines and workers destroying the past that she fought desperately to forget as though the wood they were made from were paper in a history book.

The people she knew are gone and moved or grown, still in-town, and are now filling the dreary roles their parents occupied twenty years ago, save for the steel mill workers — men couldn’t be those anymore, for the rusted mill still stood empty, abandoned, lifeless. But, it’s just the history Phoebe wants to forget, it’s not the old, rotted houses, or the friends she never had, or the adults who were convinced she was the reason for the mill’s closing. What she wanted to forget the most of all was the girls who had shed their flesh to reveal their true, rusted, glassy form, the Rust Maidens.

Like most readers, I’m certain, I found the adults in the story to be the most aggravating, because I, like I’m sure a lot of you have, have met people who speak and think and act they way they did. The way they blamed the Maidens from the beginning and believed that they were the cause of everyone’s problem, despite no inkling anywhere that the girls asked, wanted, or even desired what happened to them or the town itself. What person would want that anyway?

The adults reminded me of people who blame victims for things out of their control. It’s like when people accuse rape victims of wanting it by wearing certain clothes or talking a certain way. No one wants that to happen to them or anyone they know ever, and only an insane person would believe they would bring it upon themselves.

For someone or a group to say or believe such a thing is infuriating and repulsive, to say the least.

In closing, The Rust Maidens is a fantastic novel, and I highly suggest you purchasing it. I look forward to what Kiste has in store for us in the future.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

A good story of industrial decline in the Rust Belt

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 15, 2020

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I bought this book, knowing nothing in particular about it, on the basis of the Bram Stoker award. Having read it now, I can certainly understand why it received honors and rave reviews. Though relatively short, it manages to fully capture the sense of decay infecting the Rust Belt since the 1980s. The premise of humans rusting away along with their town might seem like too obvious a metaphor, but it actually manages to work, resulting in a rather haunting story of the social decline that accompanies industrial decline.

Admittedly, some of the character traits seem a little too "on the nose" and some of the subplots aren't developed as much as I'd like. The ending similarly left me wanting a bit more. However, none of these things detract much from an overall excellent book. It's not often I encounter a horror novel (though to be fair, the tone in this book is perhaps more akin to dark fantasy than "true" horror) with a truly original plot. And though some elements of this story are familiar, it manages to feel original throughout.

I'm pleased to recommend this book. I'll definitely be looking for more from this author in the future.

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Ruth Anne Garcia

Phoebe Shaw never gives up.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 25, 2020

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Phoebe Shaw returns to Dent street years after leaving it and the rust maidens behind. Back with a mission of closure, she seems to think that her memories have haunted her.

As a teen, she’s in a town that doesn’t want her, a family who tolerate her, a community that loathes her, and a best friend who accepts her. Jacqueline. When they plot to escape, Phoebe finds that she’s one of the rust maidens.

The author did a good job of explaining what a rust maiden was, how they morphed into what they become, her imagery was plain and clear. I enjoyed her book.

There were times in the book that it seemed to crawl, but that may be my own opinion. It took me longer than it usually does to get through this one. I did, however, enjoy it.

The closure at the end was nice and the ending of the novel perfect.

I do have one dislike, I wasn’t particularly into the Adrian and Phoebe thing. It may have been meant to be a teenage escape, but came off creepy. I did think trying to form that bond at the end was a way of making up for that. I just didn’t get a good feeling from it. I was irked by it, to be honest.

All in all solid book and story. A first read of Gwendolyn Kiste for me but I’m intrigued enough to check out further work.

Helpful

This is a book that will stay with you perhaps years after the last page.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 12, 2019

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In 1980 Phoebe and her best friend and cousin, Jacqueline have just graduated high school. Phoebe was never the popular girl in her neighborhood, she drank too much, pushed too many boundaries, but none of that really mattered to her. One best friend was better than a handful of acquaintances.

Phoebe had her future figured out. She had been totally committed to the study of insects for years, never any doubt about her field of study once this summer ended. She even had a bug house, built from a tree house in the back yard. First though she had a final summer with Jacqueline.

Then an unbelievable illness began to affect the young women of her neighborhood. No one understood what was happening to them, even though the father of one of the victims was a doctor.

This was the summer that changed them all forever, survivors and victims equally. The story is told in retrospect when Phoebe comes back to help her mother nearly 30 years later. This is a book that will stay with you perhaps years after the last page.

Helpful

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Andrew

Favourite novel of the year

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 17, 2021

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The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

Mild spoilers!

I haven’t read a book like this in some time, you know, the type of book your going to be talking about for years because it will occupy a space in your brain, the type you force on anyone that says they read.

Reading The Rust Maidens is akin to being seduced under a spell. The language and writing style is of such a quality I will happily read any story by Kiste in the future, she just that good.

The story here is set on Denton Street, a suburb in Cleveland, where everyone living there is in some way attached to the mill that blazes day and night. It’s graduation day for the girls of neighbourhood, the last day of the lives as they know it. For Phoebe Shaw and her cousin Jacqueline it’s also their last day in Denton, intent on leaving a town where the men are fodder for the mills and the women form committee to gain a false sense of control over their lives. That’s the plan until the young woman begin to change. To say anything more would lead to spoilers that I don’t want to give away, only know that Kiste communicates this story with a light touch that can be harrowing. A contender for my favourite read of the year.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

One person found this helpful

Des Lewis

The wrecking balls, too. I may be one of them.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

There are various climaxes …. but do they ever really end?
A series of binary choices. But each of them has a third option which is doing both. Hence this book’s triple moon.
A book that has its share of fallibilities but without those fallibilities it would be nothing. The wrecking balls, too. I may be one of them. I hope not.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.

Kindle Customer

Butterflies and an old steel mill

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 11, 2018

Verified Purchase

The Rust Maidens is a dark fantasy novel about the coming of age of a group of girls, of their transformation. It is told through Phoebe as she struggles to save her best friend Jacqueline.

We are introduced to Phoebe in the present day, the story alternates back to the events 30 years ago . The multiple events and characters are very nicely woven together.

A wonderful and very enjoyable read.

David Benjamins

Great writing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

Great story told very well and that cover is gorgeous. The voice of the writer is very clear and the characters really come to life. Read this!

Barnesm

A unexpectedly effecting and melancholic story

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on May 4, 2022

Verified Purchase

I picked up Gwendolyn Kiste's The Rust Maidens expected a steampunk tale of young women pushing back against the system (you know the punk in the name) what I got instead was beautifully crafted dark contemporary faery tale set in an industrial wasteland of America's Cleveland. Of Phoebe returning to the city she had left 28 years ago but just as "cold as a broken promise, and just as cruel" to help her mother pack the last bit that remains of her childhood home.
But its the story of five teenage girls, 28 years ago and their changes and the reactions of all those around them told through the voice and eyes of their contemporary at the time Phoebe.

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