Wrath Becomes Her

Aden Polydoros

Oct 2023 · Sold by Harlequin

About this ebook

2024 Sydney Taylor Book Award Young Adult Honor

"Haunting, exhilarating, and a howl of vengeance." —Andrew Joseph White, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Followed With Us

Frankenstein meets Inglourious Basterds in this stunning Jewish historical horror novel from the award-winning author of The City Beautiful

Vera was made for vengeance.

Lithuania, 1943. A father drowns in the all-consuming grief of a daughter killed by the Nazis. He can’t bring Chaya back from the dead, but he can use kishuf — an ancient and profane magic — to create a golem in her image. A Nazi killer, to avenge her death.

When Vera awakens, she can feel her violent purpose thrumming within her. But she can also feel glimpses of a human life lived, of stolen kisses amidst the tragedy, and of a grisly death. And when she meets Akiva, she recognizes the boy with soft lips that gave warm kisses. But these memories aren’t hers, and Vera doesn’t know if she gets—or deserves—to have a life beyond what she was made for.

Vera’s strength feels limitless—until she learns that there are others who would channel kishuf for means far less noble than avenging a daughter’s death. As she confronts the very basest of humanity, Vera will need more than what her creator gave her: Not just a reason to fight, but a reason to live.

Ratings and reviews

Vera was created for vengeance. After a man loses his daughter, Chaya, he uses ancient magic in order to create a golem in her image. Vera is born with Chaya's memories and parts of her body and her sole purpose is to track down her killer and to avenge her death. On her mission, she comes across Akiva, Chaya's former lover, and together they are out for blood. This whole premise sounded cool and I wanted to enjoy it, but I found myself not liking parts of the book. Not what I was expecting...

A bereft Jewish father crafts a golem from ancient magic to be a fighter of vengeance against the Nazis. Vera knows she is a creation, and struggles to reconcile her own thoughts and feelings with the angry purpose crafted by her creator, and the memories and experiences inherited from his daughter - whose corpse was used to make her own form. Wow, so I didn't really know what to expect, but this book brought it all. Existential dread a la Frankenstein. Action-packed plots and mystery

Very original story. There’s a little bit of Frankenstein in it - the pursuit of vengeance and the question of what makes a being “human” or “monster.” It’s part WWII horror - the gruesome Nazi experiments as well as the bloody struggle to survive and fight. And the book also has a tentative and heartbreaking second chance romance. It was quite dark and gruesome sometimes. But I think this makes sense given the history and the setting.

About the author

Aden Polydoros is an award-winning author who transitioned from female-to-male when he was 14. After going ‘stealth’ for over 10 years, he came out as transgender in order to support trans youth and vocalize how transitioning saved his life. His YA gothic fantasy novel, The City Beautiful, won the Sydney Taylor Book Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the Cybils Award, the South Carolina Book Award, and the 2022 World Fantasy Award.