Ink Vine: A Gothic Sapphic Novella

Sometimes, you just pick your poison and pray

Stay the hell out of the swamp — the backwater town of Lower Congaree recites it like an eleventh commandment. But when exotic dancer Emmy Joiner sneaks under the dark tree-canopy behind her family trailer, she meets mysterious, tattooed Zara, the first girl she dares to kiss.

But the small-town South hates a woman who dares to dance instead of plucking chickens for minimum wage, and as Emmy’s life falls apart, her relationship with Zara grows more tangled and bizarre. Zara’s offering something beautiful. But while Emmy’s slowly strangling, its price may be more than she’s willing to pay.

Shifting between the green-bright cypress cathedral and the dreamland of a dance club, Broadbent’s unforgettably-voiced debut confronts the brutal realities of poverty in the South, with a sapphic tale both sultry and sinister, gritty and gothic.

"Elizabeth Broadbent combines a steamy love story with important observations about desperation, fear, and acceptance. Ink Vine, with its elements of dark fantasy and botanical horror, reminded me of True Blood!"
-Christi Nogle, author of the Bram Stoker Award winning first novel Beulah