Thank you for the arc!!!
Crafting for Sinners by Jenny Kiefer is a brutal horror tale set in Kill Devil, Kentucky. After being fired from the evangelical-run New Creations store for her relationship with Abigail, Ruth’s attempt at revenge turns into a nightmarish ordeal.

Kiefer’s sharp pacing, visceral gore, and ruthless atmosphere shine, though the cult’s rhetoric can feel repetitive. Despite some clunky dialogue, Ruth’s resilience and the chilling premise leave a lasting impact.

4 stars - and an extra .5 stars for the great title and cover.

Ruth is dating Abigail and they live in the little, bigoted town of Kill Devil, Kentucky, home to not much but an evangelical megachurch for a congregation of a group called the New Creationists. These spawn of the angels run their own craft/hobby store which sounds just like everyone’s least favorite (rhymes with Snobby Bobby and before you unknowingly patronize this bastion of hate again I beg you to do a little research on how much they hate women, the LGBT+ community and pretty much everyone who isn’t a cis white male. And I don’t shop there so I can’t confirm this but I have heard that, like the craft/hobby store portrayed in this book, they refuse to have products with bar codes because they feel they might be the sign of the Antichrist spoken of in the Bible. Anyone know if this is true? Because that’s just funny right there.) Lauren Myracle, I hope you are seeing this! (I mean that in only the best way, BTW.)

Here the store is called New Creations and Ruth used to work there until they found out she and Abigail were engaged in lady love and she was fired for conduct unbecoming. Now she steals from there to get back at them.

So, she heads there one day to pick up (abscond with) some emergency yarn and she gets caught. But the staff doesn’t want to call the local cops on Ruth. It’s much, much worse and now she’s trapped in the store and the New Creationists are after her.

OK, given the subject matter I expected this to be less horrifying that it was, but this was absolutely brutal for me, and I spent parts of the book literally, physically contorting my body trying to get away from it (but part of that may depend on how you feel about a certain something that I won’t exactly give away, but call me Winston Smith.). Ruth is a kick ass heroine and I’m not likely to forget this any time soon. Highly recommended for horror fans…Jenny Kiefer, thank you for this (kind of. I also may never get over it.)

Thank you to Netgalley and Edelweiss for the ARC!

This was ok for me! I think the concept was really fun, and some of the gore really stood out, but the cult stuff got pretty repetitive for me. It was a bit one note in terms of repeating the same dialogue, and I was wishing for more background and nuance.

One of the coolest book covers I've ever seen. Big fan of the premise, the gore and the pacing, though I wasn't in love with the epistolary sections or a lot of the dialogue. Was rooting for Ruth and Abigail tho. Cute little reference to This Wretched Valley too. Also, look at that dang cover!