Comfort Me with Apples is foreboding from the first scene, when innocent Sophia wakes to another day in paradise.

Sophia lives peacefully with her beloved husband. He’s well-respected in the community and spoils his wife. She is so in love, so content to be his, that her first thought upon waking is “I was made for him.”

But she is not made for this house, with its giant bed and staircase so steep she must scoot down the steps like a child. Why isn’t she allowed in his cellar workshop? Who came before her?

Catherynne M. Valente spins a fantasy that starts with milk and honey and ends in bone and gristle.