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. ( )

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.
( )

Good story. ( )

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. ( )

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*
The summary sounded like something I could get into reading; typically, I'd have finished it in a matter of days. The story line was good, don't get me wrong, but it was just so slow-paced that it was all I could do to stick with it and finish. The characters were real enough, but the action I like to keep me interested just wasn't there. A plus, though, is that it wasn't the slightest bit graphic or go into too much detail in the sex scenes. I'm not a prude, but when I want to read a mystery or crime story, I don't feel that sex has a place in it, in most cases.
Anyway...as I said, the story was a good one--it did keep me guessing. I would say I was blind-sided by the ending, but I'd be lying. I didn't lean toward the ending that happened, but only because I was just trying to get to the end and wasn't putting any thought into figuring it out by then.
And speaking of the ending, I was sorely disappointed. I can believe the suspect, no problem. What I take exception to is that I was left with more questions than resolutions. It was not tied up in a nice little bow. Why did Diane do it? Why did Jason help? What did these men do to her that caused her to kill them or make Jason kill them? Did they all abuse her? I'm still not clear on that either--did Jason just help clean up or did he do all the killings? Maybe some of those things were answered, I don't know; I will admit to skimming over more and more of the story just to get finished with it. ( )