Book Review: The Caged Graves by Dianne K. Salerni

Title: The Caged Graves
Author: Dianne K. Salerni (web | twitter)
Genre: Historical Fiction YA
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Publisher: Clarion Books
Release date: May 14, 2013
Source: ARC from the publisher via NetGalley (Thanks, Clarion!)

Summary: 17-year-old Verity Boone expects a warm homecoming when she returns to Catawissa, Pennsylvania, in 1867, pledged to marry a man she has never met. Instead, she finds a father she barely knows and a future husband with whom she apparently has nothing in common. One truly horrifying surprise awaits her: the graves of her mother and aunt are enclosed in iron cages outside the local cemetery. Nobody in town will explain why, but Verity hears rumors of buried treasure and witchcraft. Perhaps the cages were built to keep grave robbers out . . . or to keep the women in. Determined to understand, Verity finds herself in a life-and-death struggle with people she trusted.

Inspired by a pair of real caged graves in present-day Catawissa, this historical YA novel weaves mystery, romance, and action into a suspenseful drama with human greed and passion at its core.

THE CAGED GRAVES by Dianne K. Salerni is some pretty stellar historical fiction, friends. Not only that, it’s also a well-told story about mysterious deaths, a betrothed couple who are just getting to know one another (more on THESE TWO in a second, because YES), and the real purpose and meaning behind two caged graves outside the cemetery walls. Two separate people recommended THE CAGED GRAVES to me—April and Alyssa—and they did not steer me wrong. The setting and the characters and the plot of this book captured me, and I very much enjoyed how plot elements that might be more familiar to me—like the romantic relationship and the mysterious deaths—were made that much different in the face of the framing device of those caged graves. BIG FAN.

In THE CAGED GRAVES, we first meet our heroine, Verity Boone, a young woman who has been living in Massachusetts with her relatives when she begins a correspondence with a boy, Nathaniel McClure, who lives in her hometown of Catawissa, PA (a real place, friends). Verity’s father, who also still lives in Catawissa and from whom Verity is a little estranged, has kind of orchestrated Verity and Nate’s betrothal, and so she leaves MA and goes back to PA. Not long after her arrival, she meets other family members who will become important to her and the story, and she sees the caged graves. Buried in one of them is her mother. In the other is her uncle’s first wife. Rumors of witchcraft surround their deaths, and so Verity spends the rest of the story trying to figure out WHY her mother was buried there, while trying to juggle her burgeoning if sometimes confusing feelings for her fiancé, Nate, and this flirty thing she has going on with the town doctor, Hadley Jones (a ginger, so I can understand the appeal). In THE CAGED GRAVES, nothing really is as it seems.

Dianne K. Salerni has many standouts in THE CAGED GRAVES, but perhaps none stand out as much as Verity Boone. For a girl who is basically returning to a home she left as a toddler of which she has no memories, she has remarkable pluck and personality, and fits herself into her new surroundings with aplomb. Because of her name, she makes it a point to always be true (I cannot imagine having to live up to my name this way), and her forthrightness is a credit. This “being true” takes a hit, though, when that doctor comes into the picture, but by and large, Verity is a very strong character. Her mother’s death when she was a child creates tension, and as Verity reads over her mother’s journal to discover the truth of what happened, she winds up turning over some pretty big stones with lots of ugly creepy-crawlies underneath. She was just an all-around great character. I’d read more about her (even though there isn’t more—THE CAGED GRAVES is a standalone).

I know I mentioned that the “mysterious deaths” are a thing in THE CAGED GRAVES, and I’ll talk about them in a second, but I wanted to talk about how much I enjoyed the relationship between Nate and Verity first. Because ROMANCE always wins. Anyway, since Nate and Verity haven’t actually MET in person until she moves back to Catawissa, but they have had an extensive correspondence, they are in this odd, kind of awkward place at first. They know each other fairly well, but don’t really know how to be with one another in person. This leads to some initial weirdness/uncertainty that in turn leads to some flirting on Verity’s part with another guy. I guess I understand why she felt attracted to the doctor, but Nate was such a stand-up guy, true in his own way, and sweet but honest with Verity. She spent a good portion of THE CAGED GRAVES torn between the two guys, but I didn’t.

One of the reasons that I admired Verity and Nate together was the way they both tackled the ongoing mystery of the caged graves and the death of Verity’s mother together. Well, Nate was supportive but forthright with Verity as she investigated things. Another relationship that was good in this book but I wish had gotten a bit more attention was the one between Verity and her dad. He and others in town keep secrets from Verity about the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death, and so she is left with her own smarts and gumption to figure it out. Nate supports Verity in her investigations, most of the time, but he has such good intentions that I seriously can’t fault him for any information he keeps to himself (which, to be honest, I can’t remember him doing very often. If Verity could be a boy’s name, too, surely it would be Nate’s). And yeah, Hadley helps, too. He’s certainly charming, friends. (But TEAM NATE.)

Speaking of Mr. Jones, he plays a decent-sized roll in THE CAGED GRAVES’ main mystery. See, there’s a prologue to this book that details a Revolutionary War deserter named Silas who kills another officer and makes off into this enormous swamp in Catawissa with a HUGE pile of gold meant to pay American soldiers. The entire town of Catawissa treats this gold as a mythical thing, and many men in town spend their youth searching the swamp for its hiding place. This gold, the people who are rumored to have found it, and the reason the graves are caged all tied together well. I can’t say I was surprised at the motive or the villain, so perhaps that is the only real weakness of THE CAGED GRAVES, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed reading about it any less, or that I understood all of the details before they were revealed to us, which would’ve been a bigger bummer.

All in all, THE CAGED GRAVES was atmospheric, satisfying, and had the perfect hint of the creeps. Verity was a memorable character, and her relationship with Nate was understated and yet still swoony. I am always eager to read more YA historical fiction friends, and Dianne K. Salerni’s book more than filled that spot on my shelves.

Check out these other reviews of The Caged Graves by Dianne K. Salerni!

Alyssa @ Books Take You Places: “The characters in The Caged Graves were wonderfully layered and personable, I found them all to be rather spirited and above all, believable.”

April @ Good Books and Good Wine: “Salerni’s latest is utterly engrossing and exactly what I want to read in historical book.”

Jessica @ Read My Breath Away: “There is so much to say about this novel that I can’t possibly fit it all into this review, or even, necessarily, into words.”