Kelly J. Ford

This was my KindleFirst pick for August. I love psychological thrillers/suspense books. And I enjoy reading gothic stories. But this wasn’t my favorite, sadly, even though I loved the premise.

It tells the story of Jane Mooney, who confessed to killing her abusive stepfather when she was 15, fled the state, and now has returned to the small town of Maud, Arkansas as a 40-year old to do time for the crime after her stepfather’s body washes up during a flood. When she goes back and faces her family and old friends, long-buried secrets surface…

This didn’t keep me at the edge of my seat, furiously turning pages cause I was dying to know what happened next. The plot moved surprisingly slow for a suspense novel. I didn’t get a great sense for any of the characters, so I found myself not caring much about what happened to them. I skimmed a lot of the middle because not much was happening.

The beginning and ending were great and I didn’t see that twist coming. Props to the author for that!

It’s told from dual POVs, from our protagonist Jane’s and Georgia Lee, a politician in Maud who also is Jane’s ex-girlfriend, both in third person.

It was an entertaining enough read on the plane when I was flying to/from a conference for work, but that was about it.… (meer)

First, I’d like to thank Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Kelly J. Ford for a DRC of Real Bad Things.

After twenty-five years, a body is found near the dam on the Arkansas River near Maud, AR., a divided town of the well-to-do – Maud Proper, and Maud Bottom, for the struggling unfortunates like Jane, who have always found life a struggle. For Jane Mooney, the probability that the body is Warren Ingram, her stepfather whose murder she confessed to at the age of seventeen, it brings back a terrible period in her life. When she hears the news, she leaves her unsettled life in Boston, MA and returns to face whatever awaits her in Maud.
In Real Bad Things, Jane confronts her past that is littered with strained relationships: her mother, Diane, who insists on making every second of Jane’s return a deep regret, her former girlfriend, Georgia Lee, who is now married and has two boys, her half-brother, Jason, who resists Jane’s efforts to rekindle their sibling closeness from decades earlier, and good friend, Angie, whose anger after all these years later puzzles Jane.
Ford deftly leads her readers through the story using the alternative viewpoints of Jane and Georgia Lee. She shows that memory can be an unreliable tool, especially when you draw conclusions based on incomplete information. It seems all these characters have a secret to tell and it’s only when each of them raises their curtain of deception that Jane has any chance at freedom and peace.
… (meer)

No body, no crime.
That’s what the police in Maud Bottoms, Arkansas say after Jane Mooney confesses to murdering her violent stepfather.
When a body is found in the river after a flood two decades later, Jane returns to the Bottoms and there’s a flood of secrets ready to spill over.
Real Bad Things is an atmospheric read where the location becomes a character in the story. The characters themselves are well developed and their relationships add a level of urgency to a mystery that doesn’t give up all its secrets until the very last page!
Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Real Bad Things will be released on September 1, 2022.… (meer)