It is about time that I got back to some good old fiction! I recently read And Hell Followed With Him by J.M. Bedard and it was pretty decent.
Synopsis: Winter is approaching fast in the windswept plains along the Canada/US border; the landscape is bleak, but the prospects of the people living there, even more so.
Dave returns home for the first time since he left as a teenager and finds his family in disarray; the Mathises, once reigning over all criminal aspects of the area, have begun to lose their grip. Palmer, the patriarch, has only gotten more bloodthirsty in his old age, an influence that has begun to rub off on Dave’s brother, Jed. It seems that the more the Mathises try to manage their own affairs, the stronger things spin out of control. Soon nearly everyone in town is drawn into the mess, from morally bankrupt cops to teenagers, to Dave himself.
Loyalties and grudges, left to fester, underpin every decision.
Family binds together, then wrenches apart- and Dave, not quite a local but not a stranger, cannot fully cleave himself from it all.
He will try- and the results will leave no one untouched.
This book started off with such an intense scene and it pulled me in. I found it to be quite an interesting read with all the perspectives you were able to explore as the reader. The mafia-style family that has control over the town is in such a mess with all their drama and it kept me reading to see what happened with them. I haven’t seen many episodes of this show but I would compare it to Bloodline from Netflix.
There is one character called “The Canadian” and they are supposed to be this ominous, powerful, menacing character which I find really funny because I am Canadian and I just picture him being very nice and saying sorry a lot (which is a stereotype but a lot of us do that ;P).
I wasn’t a huge fan of how it ends. I’m not sure if there are going to be more books added to this or if it is just a standalone but it seemed like there would be more. There are a lot of unanswered questions I have which is why I think I feel this way.
I would read more books by this author to see their journey as a writer. I will say that they could pull off some of the personas of their characters really well. All in all, I did like the book and it kept my attention enough to read the whole way through.
Book Rating: 3/5
You can buy this book on Amazon and find it on Goodreads. Check out the author’s Instagram to keep up to date with her!
Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the author in the ebook format to read and give my honest review.
2019 was a year full of reading and I compiled a list of the top 10 books of the year that I read. Watch the video and let me know if you agree with any of them!
