With a book titled Home Is Where the Bodies Are plastered onto a VHS sleeve, you know I picked up Jeneva Rose’s book as soon as I saw it.
Truly. I didn’t even read the blurb. The novel rotates between three adult siblings who have reunited after their mother dies. They live in a town so tiny that everyone knows everyone and you could go anywhere as a kid without worrying about anything. But Beth’s siblings, Michael and Nicole left for a reason. Michael, because he wanted to make something of his life, and he did. Nicole left because she couldn’t keep away from hard drugs and Beth finally cut her off. It’s Beth who’s felt stuck in life. She never left her small town, and in the end, she never even really left her childhood home. She thinks the family is this way as a result of their father going missing seven years prior.
Of course, at her mother’s bedside just before she passes she tries to utter that someone or something shouldn’t be trusted in relation to their father, but it can’t all get out before she’s gone. It seems fitting that Michael and Nicole make it just after she’s passed, leaving Beth to deal with this trauma on her own. If anything, the siblings can all agree that they want things settled as soon as possible. Their mother didn’t mince words in her will, leaving some things for each of her children, but naturally the important stuff went to Beth. They each also got letters they weren’t to open until after her funeral. That gives plenty of time for chaos to ensue.
The chaos comes in the form of an old VHS tape from the summer of 1999 where they find footage of their dad standing next to the bloody body of a twelve year old girl who the whole town had presumed had gone missing. The case was never resolved and seemed to be the wedge that pushed between Beth and the missing girl’s older brother, Lucas. Naturally, the siblings don’t know what to do with this information. They are shocked, and then enraged at their mother for going along and hiding this for so much of their lives. Things only get worse when more bodies are involved and they aren’t sure if they ever really knew their parents. While Beth is busy trying to maybe rekindle something with Lucas, who is back in town, Nicole is trying to sleuth out what actually happened. She needs to know if her father was the cold-blooded killer that video made him out to be. And Michael just seems to be doing damage control for the two of them.
Once everything is finally revealed, it’s a juicy plot that makes you blanch a bit. Was it that surprising? Perhaps not, but it still left me very satisfied in reading how it all plays out. I know this book certainly has me more interested in Rose’s other works. Apparently there are more popular titles than this one, so I have high hopes! All I know is that this is definitely a book worth checking out.