"A twisty, darkly seductive anti-hero origin story, starring a teenage killer whose trial in the Wild West is upended when her first victim, her husband, arrives alive with a story to tell.
Summer 1886-When nineteen-year-old Belle King turns herself in for murder, the last thing she expects to see is her abusive husband Reginald standing outside her Dodge City jail cell, impossibly alive. He's there to take her back, but Belle is not going without a fight. Reginald was the first man she ever meant to kill, but certainly not the last . . .
Now, while there are still bars between them, Belle is forced to resort to all the tricks in her arsenal to prevent her husband from ever being in control of her again. But in the 1880s, the last soul anyone will believe is a girl-even when she confesses to her own crimes.
With the seductive horror of a fairy tale, Lady or the Tiger is the dark, twisty story of how one mountain girl from Kentucky became the wickedest woman in the Wild West and an ode to girls with tigers in their hearts who can save themselves."
""Deliciously macabre and utterly decadent." -Kerri Maniscalco, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Stalking Jack the Ripper
In this dark and twisty feminist historical mystery, a teenage girl starts a new life as a grave robber but quickly becomes entangled in a murderer's plans.
Soon after her best friend Kitty mysteriously dies, orphaned seventeen-year-old Molly Green is sent away to live with her 'aunt.' With no relations that she knows of, Molly assumes she has been sold as a maid for the price of an extra donation in the church orphanage's coffers. Such a thing is not unheard of. There are only so many options for an unmarried girl in 1850s Philadelphia. Only, when Molly arrives, she discovers her aunt is very much real, exceedingly wealthy, and with secrets of her own. Secrets and wealth she intends to share-for a price.
Molly's estranged aunt Ava, has built her empire by robbing graves and selling the corpses to medical students who need bodies to practice surgical procedures. And she wants Molly to help her procure the corpses. As Molly learns her aunt's trade in the dead of night and explores the mansion by day, she is both horrified and deeply intrigued by the anatomy lessons held at the old church on her aunt's property. Enigmatic Doctor LaValle's lessons are a heady mixture of knowledge and power and Molly has never wanted anything more than to join his male-only group of students. But the cost of inclusion is steep and with a murderer loose in the city, the pursuit of power and opportunity becomes a deadly dance."
