Guillotine book review — The cover of *Guillotine* by Delilah S. Dawson

A Delicious Revenge Fantasy

Delilah S. Dawson’s Guillotine is a populist tale of rage and revenge written in an evocative and unique style. The main character is Dez Lane, a pretty redhead who dreams of a successful career in the high fashion industry.

She meets Patrick Ruskin, an obnoxious and dimwitted young man who is part of one of the wealthiest families in the world. She can’t stand him, but he’s attracted to her, and Dez wants to use that to her advantage.

After all, Patrick’s mother, Marie, is the editor of a prestigious fashion magazine. If Dez can build a connection with Marie, this will be the perfect way to jump start her career.

To that end, Dez accepts an invitation to visit the sprawling Ruskin family abode, which is located on a remote island. It’s a magnum opus of extravagant opulence, teeming with every luxury imaginable and servants who answer the family’s every beck and call.

The rest of the Ruskins are just as awful as her faux beau. Dez wonders if cozying up to Patrick was worth it after all.

The Story Takes a Gripping Turn

What Dez doesn’t know is that the Ruskin servants are planning a violent revolt. They have been meticulously setting the stage for an uprising. Once they’re ready to act, they take control of the island faster than you can say proletariat. The ringleader is Valerie, a brutal torturer and sadist who has many legitimate grievances with the Ruskins.

The servants’ complaints range far beyond typical stuff like low pay and rude treatment. Dawson gradually reveals the grotesque full extent of the family’s misdeeds, and it’s easy to understand Valerie’s rage, even if you can’t necessarily condone her actions.

The Ruskins are far worse than just a snobby rich family. They are psychopathic monsters. Valerie and her compatriots capture the Ruskins one by one and enact an extremely gory revenge against their tormentors.

Dez is caught in the middle. She agrees with most of what the servants are doing, but will they have mercy, or consider her guilty by association? Dez also must confront her own flawed and selfish reasons for coming to the island in the first place.

Symbolism, Plot Twists, and Creative Descriptions

The servants all wear pink outfits. In fact, pink is a color that plays a huge role in the story. Dawson repeatedly describes clothes and objects as being pink. Why? Well, pink is traditionally associated with femininity, and most of the servants are women. There’s a much deeper level to this in the story, but it involves a huge plot twist that I’m not going to spoil.

My only real complaint with this book is that it has plot elements that strain the story’s credibility. Stop reading if you don’t want to know anything more about what happens.

The servants’ plan is executed perfectly despite being very elaborate and involving numerous people. Even the best-prepared plots never go completely right. It would have been interesting to see the servants be challenged by mistakes or unexpected developments. Instead, they are omnisciently able to anticipate everything.

Also, the book eventually reveals that the servants are tracking the Ruskins with monitoring devices installed in their family rings. The servants are somehow able to do this even though the book tells us that A. the Ruskins never take their rings off B. the servants only receive an elementary school education and C. the servants never leave the island.

How did they access the rings and gain the tech knowledge needed to put in the tracking devices? Beats the hell out of me!

I loved the creative descriptions in this book. Dawson has a real knack for this. Horses are referred to as “galloping assholes”, Dez is described as “dressed like a screen siren”, and, when the servants gut someone, Dawson tells us that they are like “children playing in a sandbox, curious to see what will happen next.” That’s just a few examples of the countless fantastic descriptions scattered throughout the story.