The Cake House

Praise

“Intense and savagely beautiful, Latifah Salom’s The Cake House grabs you, then grabs you harder.  The magic of this suburban-gothic literary thriller is the scale on which it’s done—small and absolutely terrifying. An accomplished, mesmerizing debut.”  —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander 
 
“The Cake House is a gem of a novel: a mystery wrapped in a cloak of family dysfunction with subtle Shakespearean trim. . . . Rosaura is a heroine with spunk and a vulnerability so endearing I missed her the second I closed the book. Salom has written a dazzling coming-of-age tale that will resonate long after you reach the end.” —Elizabeth Flock, New York Times bestselling author of Me & Emma and What Happened To My Sister

“Readers will welcome Salom’s debut for her nimble prose, as she constructs an otherworldly Southern California setting. . . . From the explosive first pages, when 14-year-old Rosaura’s father is shot dead in the entrance of the grand but sterile “cake house” of the title, we know that pieces of this mystery will remain teasingly hazy. . . . A worthwhile page-turner.” —Booklist

“Tense,  shocking, and seductively dark, The Cake House is a brand-new twist on a classic story—an urban reinvention of a Shakespearean tale.” —Rebecca Coleman, bestselling author of The Kingdom of Childhood

“Reading The Cake House, I vividly saw the whole edifice rising up before me, latticework covering a multitude of sins. A wonderful, chewy, complicated book that doesn’t flinch from danger or pain but rejects despair.” —Naomi Novik, author of the bestselling Temeraire series