We Already Dug the Grave by Emma C. Wells: A kitschy Southern gothic thriller

I wanted to love We Already Dug the Grave. After all, I absolutely adored Emma C. Wells’ debut novel, This Girl’s a Killer, so when I saw that Wells had another book coming out, it was an automatic must-read for me. Unfortunately, while We Already Dug the Grave has plenty of the ingredients I loved in her debut, it never quite captures the same sharp wit or confidence.

We Already Dug the Grave follows estranged sisters Milly and Francis, who have spent years apart after something terrible happened in a Tennessee meadow. Milly has always been the odd one, with an ability to divine the future through tea leaves. But lately, the tea leaves have gone silent, which might seem like a blessing considering how bleak Milly’s life has become.

Francis, meanwhile, has moved on to a shiny new life with a shiny new husband. At least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. When Francis suddenly appears on Milly’s doorstep with a black eye and a desperate plea for help, Milly can’t turn her away. Especially when the tea leaves start speaking again. And their message is clear: if the sisters don’t kill Francis’s husband, he’s going to kill her.

That means the sisters have to return to the place they left behind a decade ago—a place where they already have a body buried and a whole lot of secrets they would rather stay buried, too. The premise is exactly the sort of thing that should have been right up my alley. Murderous sisters? Family secrets? A little supernatural weirdness? Southern gothic atmosphere? Sign me up.

Unfortunately, I kept wishing the book had the same sharpness as This Girl’s a Killer. The biggest difference is the tone. We Already Dug the Grave is much more kitschy Southern gothic than genuinely dark. There are tea leaves that predict the future, buried bodies, mysterious family history, bad men who need to be dealt with, and a whole lot of heightened emotion. But rather than creating the unsettling atmosphere of a truly dark Southern gothic thriller, those elements sometimes make the book feel almost campy.

And I don’t mean “campy” in the sense that Wells is deliberately writing a tongue-in-cheek Southern gothic comedy. I don’t think the book is trying to be camp. Instead, the melodrama and heightened gothic elements sometimes come across as kitschy because the writing doesn’t always have the same control or bite that made her debut work so well.

That was particularly noticeable with the dual timelines. I understand what the structure is doing: the past contains the secrets that explain the sisters’ complicated relationship and the events that brought them to this point, while the present deals with Francis’ abusive marriage and the sisters’ increasingly complicated murder plot. But instead of consistently building momentum, the jumps between timelines frequently pulled me out of the story.

I also had trouble with some of the characters’ motivations and with the logistics of the plot. Too often, I found myself thinking, “Wait, why would they do that?” or “How exactly is that supposed to work?” Those aren’t questions you want your reader asking in the middle of a thriller.

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And the problem becomes even more noticeable because the novel depends so heavily on the sisters’ choices. Their willingness to do some fairly extreme things is the foundation of the story, so I needed to understand why they were making the decisions they made. By the end, some of those decisions made very little sense to me. I could see what the plot needed the characters to do, but I couldn’t always see why the characters themselves would make those choices. That made the book feel less confident than This Girl’s a Killer.

There are moments when I had the uncomfortable feeling that this was a second novel that had been purchased before it had been fully written and then had to be written quickly to meet a publisher’s deadline. Obviously, I have no idea whether that was actually the case, but the finished novel sometimes has that rushed quality. Character motivations aren’t always fully developed, logistical details don’t always hold together, and the plot occasionally seems to be pushing the characters toward the next development rather than allowing their choices to naturally create it. And that’s particularly frustrating because I know Wells can write with much more bite.

This Girl’s a Killer had a sharp, wicked sense of humor that made its darker material work. It knew exactly what kind of book it was, and the writing had the confidence to carry it. We Already Dug the Grave has a fun premise and some wonderfully strange ingredients, but it feels much more self-conscious. Instead of the darkness being leavened by humor, the melodrama sometimes overwhelms the story.

There are still things I enjoyed. I liked the basic idea of Milly and Francis as sisters who have already crossed one very serious line together and might have to cross it again. I liked the supernatural element of Milly’s tea leaves, and I enjoyed the idea of returning to the site of their original crime and uncovering everything that happened there. The book also has plenty of the eccentric Southern gothic ingredients that make this kind of story appealing. I just wish those ingredients had been brought together with the same precision and wit Wells demonstrated in her debut.

If you haven’t read This Girl’s a Killer, you may have a very different reaction to We Already Dug the Grave. Without the comparison to Wells’ first novel, I might have been more willing to take this book on its own terms. But when an author gives me a debut that I adore, I’m inevitably going to bring those expectations to the next book. For me, We Already Dug the Grave doesn’t live up to them.

It’s a kitschy Southern gothic thriller with murderous sisters, family secrets, supernatural touches, and plenty of melodrama. If that combination sounds appealing, you may find plenty to enjoy here. Just don’t go into it expecting the darkly funny, razor-sharp thriller that made This Girl’s a Killer such a standout for me.

Have you read This Girl’s a Killer? If so, are you planning to pick up We Already Dug the Grave? Let me know in the comments!

An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Related Content

• Book Review: This Girl’s a Killer by Emma C. Wells (Write on the World)
• Emma C. Wells in conversation with Alison Wisdom (Murder by the Books)
• Interview with Emma C. Wells About Her Debut Thriller This Girl’s a Killer | Bookish Podcast (YouTube)

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