Praise for SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE
A National Bestseller "A bloody good read . . . A taut, lyrical account of the destruction of the Borden family . . . brings to mind Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Everything about Schmidt's novel is hauntingly, beautifully off." --
USA Today "Schmidt has created a lurid and original work of horror." --
New York Times Book Re-view "A prickly, unsettling wonder: a story so tactile and feverishly surreal it feels like a sort of reverse haunting . . . As much as
See What I Have Done is Borden's story, it's also an unvarnished glimpse of what it means to be female, in ways not strictly confined to the late 19th century." --
Entertainment Weekly "[Schmidt creates an] atmosphere of brooding dread and lurking neurosis . . . a sense of claustrophobia and entrapment appropriate to her tale of seething jealousies and familial love and hate inextricably in-tertwined." --
Boston Globe "A gripping and still puzzling story." --
Wall Street Journal "Deliciously disturbing . . . [Schmidt's] prose is clever and taut and generously seasoned with nouns verbing their way into literary history." --
New York Journal of Books "A barn-burning, fever-ridden first novel. It makes blistering reading out of first-rate historical fiction . . . Hilary Mantel, in her brilliant re-creation of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies, may be the best practitioner alive, but this book announces Schmidt as a new sister in the craft." --
Newsday "Schmidt is undeniably a fine writer." --
Dallas Morning News "An outstanding debut novel about love, death, and the lifelong repercussions of unresolved grief." --
Observer "Schmidt weaves a complicated, compelling tale . . . giving fresh life to a sensational crime of old." --
Marie Claire "[A] moody, atmospheric tale . . . Superb." --
Washington Independent Review of Books "Novels that manage to spin a genuinely skin-crawling atmosphere, such as Patrick Süskind's Perfume, are rare, and Schmidt is a master . . .
See What I Have Done deserves to be considered a Gothic classic." --
Saturday Paper "Debut novelist Sarah Schmidt tackles the murk and silence in this old tale, imagining the cruel secrets of a respected family." --
Elle (one of 24 Best Books To Read This Summer) "[The] novel is compelling, scary--and gruesomely visceral." --
Entertainment Weekly (one of Summer's 20 Must-Read Books) "This palpable imagining of what led to the murder of Lizzie Borden's parents will stay with you for as long as this historical mystery has enthralled pop culture." --
Redbook (one of the Best Summer Reads) "[An] unforgettable debut . . . Equally compelling as a whodunit, 'whydunit, ' and historical novel." --
Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A dazzling debut novel that is as unsettling as the summer heat that permeates the crime scene . . . an unusually intimate portrait. There are books about murder and there are books about imploding families; this is the rare novel that seamlessly weaves the two together, asking as many questions as it answers." --
Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Heralds the arrival of a major new talent . . . Nail-biting horror mixes with a quiet, unforgettable power to create a novel readers will stay up all night finishing." --
Booklist (starred review) "What better subject for a psychological thriller than one of the most notorious murders in U.S. history . . . A fresh treatment of Lizzie Borden." --
Library Journal (starred review) "[A] gory and gripping debut." --
Guardian "Lizzie Borden might be the archetypal transgressive female, and Sarah Schmidt has taken the 81 whacks and the parents that were dealt them and spun a mesmerising reimagining of it all . . . Schmidt writes with precision and flair about the oppressive boredom of domesticity, the twisted intensity of sisterly love and the forlorn dreams of leaving and of personal reinvention . . . A glittering, gory fever dream of a book,
See What I Have Done is a remarkable debut." --
Telegraph "This novel is like a crazy murdery fever dream, swirling around the day of the murders. Schmidt has written not just a tale of a crime, but a novel of the senses. There is hardly a sentence that goes by without mention of some sensation, whether it's a smell or a sound or a taste, and it is this complete saturation of the senses that enables the novel to soak into your brain and envelope you in creepy uncomfortableness. It's a fabulous, unsettling book." --
Book Riot "Eerie and compelling, Sarah Schmidt breathes such life into the terrible, twisted tale of Lizzie Borden and her family, she makes it impossible to look away." --
Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train "Everyone knows the rhyme. We've all heard the story. But not until you read
See What I Have Done will you learn the truth behind one of the most spine-tingling horror stories of all time. In this stunning debut novel, Sarah Schmidt transforms the Lizzie Borden story from lurid infamy to flawed reality." --
Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train "Sarah Schmidt's beautifully wrought
See What I Have Done is a compelling, psychologically rich take on a well-loved tale, bringing new insight into the myth of just who Lizzie Borden was. This glorious gothic novel brings to mind the work of Sarah Waters and Patrick McGrath." --
Sabina Murray, author of Valiant Gentlemen "Haunting, evocative and psychologically taut,
See What I Have Done breathes fresh life into the infamous 19th-century murder case surrounding Lizzie Borden. This is a powerful, beautifully researched debut novel that brings us into contact with the recurring American dramas of violence and retribution while summoning the beguiling voices of the past." --
Dominic Smith, author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Painting of Sara de Vos