Such Pretty Flowers

Cerra debuts with a Southern gothic tale that shows the twists and tangles of toxic relationships. Holly is reeling from the very grisly death of her younger brother Dane. The police have ruled his death a suicide, but Holly doesn’t believe her brother killed himself, despite his history of mental illness. She also thinks his girlfriend Maura knows more about his death, and her attempts to get closer to Maura lead Holly down a path of desire and obsession from which she might not be able to escape. Cerra’s story does not skimp on sumptuous descriptions, especially as Holly’s obsession with Maura becomes sexual and harder for Holly to untangle. Brittany Pressley’s portrayal of Holly shows her slow and surprising descent and captures Maura’s contradictory personality—sweet one minute and sinister the next. Though the ending succumbs to gothic bombast, and Maura’s motivations become cartoonishly evil, listeners will be riveted by Pressley’s depiction of the women’s relationship as it grows from passionate to poisonous.