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Real Bad Things
From the author of Cottonmouths, a Los Angeles Review Best Book of 2017, comes an evocative suspense about the cost of keeping secrets and the dangers of coming home.
Beneath the roiling waters of the Arkansas River lie dead men and buried secrets.
When Jane Mooney’s violent stepfather, Warren, disappeared, most folks in Maud Bottoms, Arkansas, assumed he got drunk and drowned. After all, the river had claimed its share over the years.
When Jane confessed to his murder, she should have gone to jail. That’s what she wanted. But without a body, the police didn’t charge her with the crime. So Jane left for Boston—and took her secrets with her.
Twenty-five years later, the river floods and a body surfaces. Talk of Warren’s murder grips the town. Now in her forties, Jane returns to Maud Bottoms to reckon with her past: to do jail time, to face her revenge-bent mother, to make things right.
But though Jane’s homecoming may enlighten some, it could threaten others. Because in this desolate river valley, some secrets are better left undisturbed.
Beneath the roiling waters of the Arkansas River lie dead men and buried secrets.
When Jane Mooney’s violent stepfather, Warren, disappeared, most folks in Maud Bottoms, Arkansas, assumed he got drunk and drowned. After all, the river had claimed its share over the years.
When Jane confessed to his murder, she should have gone to jail. That’s what she wanted. But without a body, the police didn’t charge her with the crime. So Jane left for Boston—and took her secrets with her.
Twenty-five years later, the river floods and a body surfaces. Talk of Warren’s murder grips the town. Now in her forties, Jane returns to Maud Bottoms to reckon with her past: to do jail time, to face her revenge-bent mother, to make things right.
But though Jane’s homecoming may enlighten some, it could threaten others. Because in this desolate river valley, some secrets are better left undisturbed.
330 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2022
6,214 people are currently reading
12k people want to read
About the author
Kelly J. Ford
4books245followersKelly J. Ford is the Anthony-nominated author of REAL BAD THINGS; COTTONMOUTHS, a Los Angeles Review Best Book of 2017; and THE HUNT. Kelly writes crime fiction set in the Ozarks and Arkansas River Valley.
I dislike rating systems. If I like a book I give it 5 stars.
I dislike rating systems. If I like a book I give it 5 stars.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 485 reviews
January 25, 2022
Ooooohh boy did this book keep me guessing. I read some critiques that the ending was too predictable, which I don't disagree, what happened in the end was one of my speculations. Key word there is one. I'm perfectly okay with a book having a predictable outcome when the writer does such a good job of leading you down a large web of possibilities. Kelly J. Ford was pulling me every which way, it was a wild ride.
25 years ago Jane confessed to the murder of her stepdad. The body has now just been recovered and Jane is forced to come & face the consequences of her confession. This gave me some maaaajor Sharp Objects vibes. From Jane having to go back to her small hometown, to her narcissistic mother making her life a living hell.
I would consider this a slow burn psychological thriller. The plot and character development was
25 years ago Jane confessed to the murder of her stepdad. The body has now just been recovered and Jane is forced to come & face the consequences of her confession. This gave me some maaaajor Sharp Objects vibes. From Jane having to go back to her small hometown, to her narcissistic mother making her life a living hell.
I would consider this a slow burn psychological thriller. The plot and character development was
August 31, 2022
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Like her previous novel , this book is set in a rural area that could be anywhere but undeniably is the American South. At no point do we feel the curiously unmoored sensation that many crime-centered stories have, that eternal-now anywhereness. It starts from when Jane is released from steerage, I mean the commuter plane, onto the hot tarmac of a regional airport. Her mother's nasty phone message hissing in her newly single, newly homeless ear, "don't even think of running." Why Ma didn't say "again" is beyond me, because Jane's running hasn't stopped since it was "away to Boston, there a lesbian to be."
So now she's coming back to face the music for confessing to her stepfather's murder a quarter century ago. Note: confessing to. Not murdering. And that demented witch of a mother believes her, always has, she's been squatting in this nowhere town stewing in her rage and hate for the abnormal daughter who (she said she believed) murdered the abusive man who probably would've killed Ma by now had he lived.
Ah. Family ties.
Like many women with no options, her Ma had never met a nice guy and this latest one was the most violent yet. And the whole town knew it. Not a soul stepped in to help...except Jane's young love, Georgia Lee. Things go very Beautiful Creatures for a minute...Jane's brother Jason gets pulled in...it's all a major clusterfuck, in fact, and when it all settles down there's no Warren. I mean, he's dead, but there's no body. So, no body = no crime. Confess til ya turn purple, Janey luv, no body = no crime. She does spend a goodly amount of time in juvenile detention. The second that ends, she gets the hell out of Arkansas.
What is really clear while reading this book is the quiet insanity of country life. People are all up in each other's hip pockets, they know what's happening, but not a soul interferes. Wouldn't be proper, if a woman lets a man beat her up that's her lookout. Those kids won't amount to anything anyway, so what they suffer.
It's really like this, folks. This is what the world is. And it's ugly as all get out.
Now that everything changed because there's a body, surfaced after twenty-five years, Jane's home to face the music.
What music? She was a juvenile, she was in state custody until charges were dropped, and now there's *a* body but no one knows if it's that right one. (Lotsa men disappeared from this town over the years. No one seems to've looked into it. Not like they were anybody much.)
So we have ourselves a problem. What's Jane facing? Trial? Still no body...conviction? LOLOL
Her life. Her mother. Her ex, her first true love Georgia Lee. Even the little brother who simply existed throughout this ordeal, offering nothing to Jane. All that and more; vaster than oceans and more deep is the need in Jane for answers rather than lies or silences. The answers she finally gets are deeply unsettling. I could never call the last meeting of Jason and Jane a case of healing by honesty, but it was certainly an explanation of parts of their past that seemed weird and random.
Kelly J. Ford was formed by Arkansas and she has never forgiven it for that. As revenges go, this book is a great step.
My Review: Like her previous novel , this book is set in a rural area that could be anywhere but undeniably is the American South. At no point do we feel the curiously unmoored sensation that many crime-centered stories have, that eternal-now anywhereness. It starts from when Jane is released from steerage, I mean the commuter plane, onto the hot tarmac of a regional airport. Her mother's nasty phone message hissing in her newly single, newly homeless ear, "don't even think of running." Why Ma didn't say "again" is beyond me, because Jane's running hasn't stopped since it was "away to Boston, there a lesbian to be."
So now she's coming back to face the music for confessing to her stepfather's murder a quarter century ago. Note: confessing to. Not murdering. And that demented witch of a mother believes her, always has, she's been squatting in this nowhere town stewing in her rage and hate for the abnormal daughter who (she said she believed) murdered the abusive man who probably would've killed Ma by now had he lived.
Ah. Family ties.
Like many women with no options, her Ma had never met a nice guy and this latest one was the most violent yet. And the whole town knew it. Not a soul stepped in to help...except Jane's young love, Georgia Lee. Things go very Beautiful Creatures for a minute...Jane's brother Jason gets pulled in...it's all a major clusterfuck, in fact, and when it all settles down there's no Warren. I mean, he's dead, but there's no body. So, no body = no crime. Confess til ya turn purple, Janey luv, no body = no crime. She does spend a goodly amount of time in juvenile detention. The second that ends, she gets the hell out of Arkansas.
What is really clear while reading this book is the quiet insanity of country life. People are all up in each other's hip pockets, they know what's happening, but not a soul interferes. Wouldn't be proper, if a woman lets a man beat her up that's her lookout. Those kids won't amount to anything anyway, so what they suffer.
It's really like this, folks. This is what the world is. And it's ugly as all get out.
Now that everything changed because there's a body, surfaced after twenty-five years, Jane's home to face the music.
What music? She was a juvenile, she was in state custody until charges were dropped, and now there's *a* body but no one knows if it's that right one. (Lotsa men disappeared from this town over the years. No one seems to've looked into it. Not like they were anybody much.)
So we have ourselves a problem. What's Jane facing? Trial? Still no body...conviction? LOLOL
Her life. Her mother. Her ex, her first true love Georgia Lee. Even the little brother who simply existed throughout this ordeal, offering nothing to Jane. All that and more; vaster than oceans and more deep is the need in Jane for answers rather than lies or silences. The answers she finally gets are deeply unsettling. I could never call the last meeting of Jason and Jane a case of healing by honesty, but it was certainly an explanation of parts of their past that seemed weird and random.
Kelly J. Ford was formed by Arkansas and she has never forgiven it for that. As revenges go, this book is a great step.
September 1, 2022
“Please.� Jane cracked the door but didn’t step outside. She wanted out, but more than that, she wanted to inflict pain. “You only ever loved yourself.�p224
And this is true for every character in REAL BAD THINGS by Kelly J. Ford.
I waited a long time to review this book for a couple reasons.
The first reason is I read it with a group of other bookstagrammers and was supposed to discuss it with them tonight. (I missed the chat. But I read it later.) The second reason is I really needed to think about this book. Or rather, get clear of all the feelings it invoked so that I could think about it.
REAL BAD THINGS burns right from the start. It spins out like tropical vine, defying the logic of narrative shape, sending spikes of mystery through its slippery flesh to snag your reading eyes. It seems to make no sense, but you can't look away as the narrative shimmies inevitably toward its conclusion. It's fabulously messy work, full of a grotesque cast.
But the narrative is slow. So slow, that its languid shake of the page can look to some like a lazy pace, and to some like a goosedown pillow. And...you see my trigger warnings list is an arsenal.
I want to read more from Kelly J. Ford. REAL BAD THINGS is a real good book, but probably a matter of personal taste.
✔️August Pick 9/10
✔️52 Book Club Summer Genre Challenge: Thriller
✔️52 Book Club 52 Book Challenge: a book you've seen someone reading in public (I improvised this one)
*Follow my Instagram book blog for all my reviews, challenges, and book lists! *
Rating 3.5 stars rounded up
Finished August 2022
Recommended to fans of thrillers, mysteries, family drama as a narrative element
TW wow there's a lot: poverty, mental health concerns, child abuse and neglect, excessive alcohol consumption, drug consumption (off page), physical and emotional abuse in multiple relationship structures, dismemberment, police, jail, and imprisonment, including under false circumstances, I mean...I think there's still more that I'm missing also.
And this is true for every character in REAL BAD THINGS by Kelly J. Ford.
I waited a long time to review this book for a couple reasons.
The first reason is I read it with a group of other bookstagrammers and was supposed to discuss it with them tonight. (I missed the chat. But I read it later.) The second reason is I really needed to think about this book. Or rather, get clear of all the feelings it invoked so that I could think about it.
REAL BAD THINGS burns right from the start. It spins out like tropical vine, defying the logic of narrative shape, sending spikes of mystery through its slippery flesh to snag your reading eyes. It seems to make no sense, but you can't look away as the narrative shimmies inevitably toward its conclusion. It's fabulously messy work, full of a grotesque cast.
But the narrative is slow. So slow, that its languid shake of the page can look to some like a lazy pace, and to some like a goosedown pillow. And...you see my trigger warnings list is an arsenal.
I want to read more from Kelly J. Ford. REAL BAD THINGS is a real good book, but probably a matter of personal taste.
✔️August Pick 9/10
✔️52 Book Club Summer Genre Challenge: Thriller
✔️52 Book Club 52 Book Challenge: a book you've seen someone reading in public (I improvised this one)
*Follow my Instagram book blog for all my reviews, challenges, and book lists! *
Rating 3.5 stars rounded up
Finished August 2022
Recommended to fans of thrillers, mysteries, family drama as a narrative element
TW wow there's a lot: poverty, mental health concerns, child abuse and neglect, excessive alcohol consumption, drug consumption (off page), physical and emotional abuse in multiple relationship structures, dismemberment, police, jail, and imprisonment, including under false circumstances, I mean...I think there's still more that I'm missing also.
February 5, 2024
It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on abuse, child endangerment, violence, parental neglect, sexual abuse, psychological distress, & others.
This book explores the reflective events that transpired in the lives of a group of four (4) friends in their teen years as they found themselves involved in the disappearance of Warren Ingram; an abusive drunk who filled the role of stepfather to Jane & Jason Mooney in title alone. This story is read through the dual point of view of Georgia Lee & Jane; two members of the group of four who fostered a blossoming romance for a short time before Jane put herself forward as Warren’s murderer, providing no rationale for her decision save for her belief that her sibling had indeed committed the crime.
I need to give credit where it is due & therefore, I shall begin my review with praise. Ford crafts a story that could be real. All the characters in this book could be people any of us knew, they could be people we read about in the paper, they could even possibly be me or they could be you.
The world in which this story takes place (Maud, Arkansas) is earnest & settled. We do not require multiple chapters to understand or appreciate where we are as Ford drew us a clear picture & I applaud her for that.
While I do grant Ford praise for crafting a story that revealed its ability to present the reader with fully fleshed-out characters, environments, & conflicts; this also leads me to the part which rendered this book something more difficult for me to read. I found myself off-the-cuff hating Georgia Lee.
It is challenging for me to write about situations I find in books without putting myself into the critique. I suppose this is the clause to which humanity is pinned; we view everything in the first person & everyone & everything we compare & contrast our own experiences as well as ourselves. For this reason, I was unable to garner any sympathy toward Georgia Lee. We have to read about a character who felt inclined to vocalize that she was the reason that Jane & Jason were safe from Warren’s abuse. She was the one who killed the violent man who lived in their home. She was the one who stood up against the villain.
I want this to be clear; I am in no way trying to shame people who have not lived through situations in which their entire personality, well-being, & survival mechanisms were transformed due to abuse. I am not trying to say that if you had a good life, you cannot speak about things around you.
What I am saying is that it was very obvious to me that Georgia Lee had never truly been afraid a day in her life. For, if she had, she would have kept her mouth shut when Warren was slurring off to her in the doorway that night. I was riddled with anxiety reading about a person who had not a single clue as to what it feels like to be afraid in your own home; what it feels like to have to be quiet in all the wrong ways so that one day you can feel safe. It’s no good talking back to someone whom you know could put your head through the drywall.
What I found most aggravating about this scene was that we are meant to feel poorly for Georgia Lee. Perhaps, my inability to do so resides fully in my experiences. I could not but feel petrified for Jane & Jason because there was no way in hell that Georgia Lee was going to set right what a grown person had put wrong.
The fact that she bludgeoned him while he was inebriated, with a stone was luck & nothing more. To read about a situation where things could have gone very wrong, very quickly, as though there was no possibility of that happening was sickening. I will grant Ford the benefit of the doubt; perhaps she wrote this book in a way that would lead the reader to grasp that fact for themselves. Regardless, I found it difficult to digest.
I want to talk about the details of the crime. Due to this story taking place in a State within a country in which I am unfamiliar with their legal system, I found myself having to do further research while making my way through the story. I am certainly glad for a book to encourage me to further my knowledge on a subject which I was unfamiliar with prior. However, the way this story presents its obstacles is a bit frustrating.
For example, when Warren is ‘found� I was confused about how they would have known that it was him. The man had been dead for twenty-five years & his body was in warm water which one can conclude to mean, that the heightened temperature would have certainly moved forward the decomposition his body underwent.
One might state that the policing body would have tested his DNA with previous medical records. Given this story takes place in the USA it’s not farfetched to assume that Warren, who spent all of his time & money remaining inebriated, was probably not working a job that granted him medical insurance. Therefore, he wouldn’t have been seeing a dentist & no medical records might have been pulled to compare to the teeth found on the skeleton.
When it was revealed that the skeleton was not Warren’s, I was annoyed. I appreciate that this is a small town in a State wherein advanced justice system proceedings might not take place, however, I cannot confirm that for certain as I do not live there. Therefore, the author is asking the reader to make many leaps in their assumptions to cushion the plot reveals.
Assuming that the policing body in Maud was horrendous at their jobs, they would still have to record that they found a body. We already know for a fact that there were dozens, if not more, men, who had gone missing within a specific period. Even with them being utterly horrible at their jobs, one might assume that one of the men missing was a personal friend of a police officer. In this case, that was Warren (as detailed by numerous recollections). Therefore, as a personal friend of the victim, why was no effort put into ensuring that the identification was confirmed?
We are assuming that this story takes place in the current time, as evidenced by the use of Facebook, we can therefore deduce that these people knew about advanced criminal investigations & proceedings. So, why did we have to read an entire book in which the policing body had released a confirmed statement of the body belonging to Warren?
Diane was the person to know that Warren was found due to Gerry telling her. She doesn’t strike me as an idiot, though she acts idiotically, so, why was she so apt to believe him if not for a supporting statement by the police?
Another aspect of the proceedings that left me with questions was the stint in Juvenile Detention. Jane states that she was sent to Juvenile Detention for her crimes against Warren. Based on “Shelby John TIPTON v. STATE of Arkansas� (1998) a person would not be convicted of the same crime twice. also known as Double Jeopardy.
I am left feeling confused as to whether Jane’s stint in Juvie was indeed her serving time for the crime she admitted to, given she was a minor she wouldn’t have been sent to an adult penitentiary (though this has been known to happen before). Therefore, was she convicted of the murder or did she serve time for,�.being annoying? Why did she go there if not as a consequence of a conviction? If that is the case, why was she constantly worried she was going to be re-convicted?
Though I did have frustrations with the crimes presented in this novel, I appreciated that we were presented with a story that took place in a town filled with people who lost men en mass & yet seemed oblivious to it ever happening; something not unlike what happens in many cities, States, Provinces & Territories around North America every day.
My greatest qualm with the way the book flows is the asinine amount of dialogue we have to read which brings nothing to the story. Every chapter is filled with reflections which then result in an inner monologue which then transforms into shared dialogues of; Is this person keeping something from me? I am a protector. Did this person squeal on me? Who did this? Why would this person I know do this?
We circle the same number of questions that are never answered. It made no difference how many times Jane questioned her brother’s involvement because when the book was over, nothing was revealed to us that we didn’t already know.
Are we meant to believe that 14-year-old Jason was murdering all his mother’s boyfriends? The reveal of him having been sexually abused by at least one of Diane’s partners was hinted at as having happened early in the book & the fact that it is never concretely explored makes me feel as though it were utilized as some form of reasoning for him taking a baseball bat to a person.
The reason I would have preferred a conclusive & well-presented ending was that we speak about so much of ‘nothing� throughout the entire story that, when we arrive at the end; Diane lying on the sofa trying to off-herself, Jason covering for her evasion of guilt in the crimes, it all feels very shallow & rather vapid.
I wish we had had some form of substantial dialogue. Instead, the entire final chapters are filled with back & forth ‘run� ‘no� ‘run� ‘no�. Please, give me something to work with here, we’re standing in the room with the person we are meant to believe serial murdered dozens & dozens of adult men in his childhood, I need some form of concrete statement somewhere to clear the water because right now it makes little sense to me.
This is not to say that I don’t understand Jason’s trauma response, I do. However, I would have wanted Ford to detail things more clearly. When did he snap? Where along the line did he realize violence was his means of retaliation? When did Diane realize that Jason was capable of violent crimes? What was the conversation they had between mother & son that would have resulted in Diane being completely fine with Jane hanging for a crime she knew Jane hadn’t committed?
There was a lot of information missing & though it’s fine to hint at things & allow the reader to form their own conclusions, I didn’t like that for this story. The weight of the subjects broached in the plot merited some explanations. I would say particularly so as this story presents much of what many people go through in a way that sheds light on how common they are.
People are swift & unquestioning when a parent states something; no one questioned whether or not Georgia Lee had Mono, for example. I think the children who were abused in this story deserved their truth to be told in a blunt & honest way. Though I acknowledge that this would rarely happen from a first-person perspective; the book would have benefited from a third-person narration.
Utilizing Georgia Lee & Jane as narrators kept the story within confines that prevented the reader from learning details that would have carried weight; which would have garnered the characters' sympathy & understanding. A third-person narration would have also allowed the reader to pause, to reflect on many, if not all, of the facts presented in the story.
Overall, I didn’t hate this story but it wasn’t one that I would revel in for its astounding plot. I found the characters to be shallow for the majority of the time. Though this might be true to their dimension as people, it was hard to want to continue reading when I didn’t feel any connection to any of them, nor did I anticipate any reveals because, for me, most of it was set out since the beginning.
This is why I made my comments regarding the transparency of trauma/influence. I think other people will enjoy this story. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it & I do feel that it will be appreciated by some readers—particularly lovers of the genre—should they decide to give it a chance.
Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, & Kelly J. Ford for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
This book explores the reflective events that transpired in the lives of a group of four (4) friends in their teen years as they found themselves involved in the disappearance of Warren Ingram; an abusive drunk who filled the role of stepfather to Jane & Jason Mooney in title alone. This story is read through the dual point of view of Georgia Lee & Jane; two members of the group of four who fostered a blossoming romance for a short time before Jane put herself forward as Warren’s murderer, providing no rationale for her decision save for her belief that her sibling had indeed committed the crime.
I need to give credit where it is due & therefore, I shall begin my review with praise. Ford crafts a story that could be real. All the characters in this book could be people any of us knew, they could be people we read about in the paper, they could even possibly be me or they could be you.
The world in which this story takes place (Maud, Arkansas) is earnest & settled. We do not require multiple chapters to understand or appreciate where we are as Ford drew us a clear picture & I applaud her for that.
While I do grant Ford praise for crafting a story that revealed its ability to present the reader with fully fleshed-out characters, environments, & conflicts; this also leads me to the part which rendered this book something more difficult for me to read. I found myself off-the-cuff hating Georgia Lee.
It is challenging for me to write about situations I find in books without putting myself into the critique. I suppose this is the clause to which humanity is pinned; we view everything in the first person & everyone & everything we compare & contrast our own experiences as well as ourselves. For this reason, I was unable to garner any sympathy toward Georgia Lee. We have to read about a character who felt inclined to vocalize that she was the reason that Jane & Jason were safe from Warren’s abuse. She was the one who killed the violent man who lived in their home. She was the one who stood up against the villain.
I want this to be clear; I am in no way trying to shame people who have not lived through situations in which their entire personality, well-being, & survival mechanisms were transformed due to abuse. I am not trying to say that if you had a good life, you cannot speak about things around you.
What I am saying is that it was very obvious to me that Georgia Lee had never truly been afraid a day in her life. For, if she had, she would have kept her mouth shut when Warren was slurring off to her in the doorway that night. I was riddled with anxiety reading about a person who had not a single clue as to what it feels like to be afraid in your own home; what it feels like to have to be quiet in all the wrong ways so that one day you can feel safe. It’s no good talking back to someone whom you know could put your head through the drywall.
What I found most aggravating about this scene was that we are meant to feel poorly for Georgia Lee. Perhaps, my inability to do so resides fully in my experiences. I could not but feel petrified for Jane & Jason because there was no way in hell that Georgia Lee was going to set right what a grown person had put wrong.
The fact that she bludgeoned him while he was inebriated, with a stone was luck & nothing more. To read about a situation where things could have gone very wrong, very quickly, as though there was no possibility of that happening was sickening. I will grant Ford the benefit of the doubt; perhaps she wrote this book in a way that would lead the reader to grasp that fact for themselves. Regardless, I found it difficult to digest.
I want to talk about the details of the crime. Due to this story taking place in a State within a country in which I am unfamiliar with their legal system, I found myself having to do further research while making my way through the story. I am certainly glad for a book to encourage me to further my knowledge on a subject which I was unfamiliar with prior. However, the way this story presents its obstacles is a bit frustrating.
For example, when Warren is ‘found� I was confused about how they would have known that it was him. The man had been dead for twenty-five years & his body was in warm water which one can conclude to mean, that the heightened temperature would have certainly moved forward the decomposition his body underwent.
One might state that the policing body would have tested his DNA with previous medical records. Given this story takes place in the USA it’s not farfetched to assume that Warren, who spent all of his time & money remaining inebriated, was probably not working a job that granted him medical insurance. Therefore, he wouldn’t have been seeing a dentist & no medical records might have been pulled to compare to the teeth found on the skeleton.
When it was revealed that the skeleton was not Warren’s, I was annoyed. I appreciate that this is a small town in a State wherein advanced justice system proceedings might not take place, however, I cannot confirm that for certain as I do not live there. Therefore, the author is asking the reader to make many leaps in their assumptions to cushion the plot reveals.
Assuming that the policing body in Maud was horrendous at their jobs, they would still have to record that they found a body. We already know for a fact that there were dozens, if not more, men, who had gone missing within a specific period. Even with them being utterly horrible at their jobs, one might assume that one of the men missing was a personal friend of a police officer. In this case, that was Warren (as detailed by numerous recollections). Therefore, as a personal friend of the victim, why was no effort put into ensuring that the identification was confirmed?
We are assuming that this story takes place in the current time, as evidenced by the use of Facebook, we can therefore deduce that these people knew about advanced criminal investigations & proceedings. So, why did we have to read an entire book in which the policing body had released a confirmed statement of the body belonging to Warren?
Diane was the person to know that Warren was found due to Gerry telling her. She doesn’t strike me as an idiot, though she acts idiotically, so, why was she so apt to believe him if not for a supporting statement by the police?
Another aspect of the proceedings that left me with questions was the stint in Juvenile Detention. Jane states that she was sent to Juvenile Detention for her crimes against Warren. Based on “Shelby John TIPTON v. STATE of Arkansas� (1998) a person would not be convicted of the same crime twice. also known as Double Jeopardy.
I am left feeling confused as to whether Jane’s stint in Juvie was indeed her serving time for the crime she admitted to, given she was a minor she wouldn’t have been sent to an adult penitentiary (though this has been known to happen before). Therefore, was she convicted of the murder or did she serve time for,�.being annoying? Why did she go there if not as a consequence of a conviction? If that is the case, why was she constantly worried she was going to be re-convicted?
Though I did have frustrations with the crimes presented in this novel, I appreciated that we were presented with a story that took place in a town filled with people who lost men en mass & yet seemed oblivious to it ever happening; something not unlike what happens in many cities, States, Provinces & Territories around North America every day.
My greatest qualm with the way the book flows is the asinine amount of dialogue we have to read which brings nothing to the story. Every chapter is filled with reflections which then result in an inner monologue which then transforms into shared dialogues of; Is this person keeping something from me? I am a protector. Did this person squeal on me? Who did this? Why would this person I know do this?
We circle the same number of questions that are never answered. It made no difference how many times Jane questioned her brother’s involvement because when the book was over, nothing was revealed to us that we didn’t already know.
Are we meant to believe that 14-year-old Jason was murdering all his mother’s boyfriends? The reveal of him having been sexually abused by at least one of Diane’s partners was hinted at as having happened early in the book & the fact that it is never concretely explored makes me feel as though it were utilized as some form of reasoning for him taking a baseball bat to a person.
The reason I would have preferred a conclusive & well-presented ending was that we speak about so much of ‘nothing� throughout the entire story that, when we arrive at the end; Diane lying on the sofa trying to off-herself, Jason covering for her evasion of guilt in the crimes, it all feels very shallow & rather vapid.
I wish we had had some form of substantial dialogue. Instead, the entire final chapters are filled with back & forth ‘run� ‘no� ‘run� ‘no�. Please, give me something to work with here, we’re standing in the room with the person we are meant to believe serial murdered dozens & dozens of adult men in his childhood, I need some form of concrete statement somewhere to clear the water because right now it makes little sense to me.
This is not to say that I don’t understand Jason’s trauma response, I do. However, I would have wanted Ford to detail things more clearly. When did he snap? Where along the line did he realize violence was his means of retaliation? When did Diane realize that Jason was capable of violent crimes? What was the conversation they had between mother & son that would have resulted in Diane being completely fine with Jane hanging for a crime she knew Jane hadn’t committed?
There was a lot of information missing & though it’s fine to hint at things & allow the reader to form their own conclusions, I didn’t like that for this story. The weight of the subjects broached in the plot merited some explanations. I would say particularly so as this story presents much of what many people go through in a way that sheds light on how common they are.
People are swift & unquestioning when a parent states something; no one questioned whether or not Georgia Lee had Mono, for example. I think the children who were abused in this story deserved their truth to be told in a blunt & honest way. Though I acknowledge that this would rarely happen from a first-person perspective; the book would have benefited from a third-person narration.
Utilizing Georgia Lee & Jane as narrators kept the story within confines that prevented the reader from learning details that would have carried weight; which would have garnered the characters' sympathy & understanding. A third-person narration would have also allowed the reader to pause, to reflect on many, if not all, of the facts presented in the story.
Overall, I didn’t hate this story but it wasn’t one that I would revel in for its astounding plot. I found the characters to be shallow for the majority of the time. Though this might be true to their dimension as people, it was hard to want to continue reading when I didn’t feel any connection to any of them, nor did I anticipate any reveals because, for me, most of it was set out since the beginning.
This is why I made my comments regarding the transparency of trauma/influence. I think other people will enjoy this story. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it & I do feel that it will be appreciated by some readers—particularly lovers of the genre—should they decide to give it a chance.
Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, & Kelly J. Ford for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 28, 2022
It’s a good rule of thumb that you shouldn’t talk to the cops if you’re suspected of a crime, and you really should NOT confess to murder if they haven’t found the body yet.
As a teenager Jane Mooney admitted to murdering her abusive step-father before the cops were even sure that he was dead, and she was released when no body turned up. Jane then fled the small Arkansas town of Maud Bottoms, and she left behind her angry mother, her brother, her best friend, and her girlfriend in doing so. Twenty-five years later, the stepfather’s body has finally been discovered, and Jane has returned home believing that she’ll most likely be arrested immediately. She finds that her mother is still angry, her brother and best friend seem to want nothing to do with her, and her old girlfriend, Georgia Lee, is now a married woman as well as on the town council. And for some reason, the cops don’t seem to be in any hurry to arrest her.
Kelly Ford makes their most of the setting which feels lived in and authentic. From the trailer parks to the backyard barbecue of the more well-to-do folks, this nails all the traits of small town life. Against this backdrop we learn what actually happened with Jane, Georgia Lee and the stepfather back then as well as see how those events shaped their lives in the aftermath. Jane left and lived in other places as an openly gay women but has had a shadow over her adult life. Georgia Lee stayed in place and threw herself so fully into the role of a wife, mother, and local politician that she’s never bothered to ask the question of who she really is and what would make her actually happy, and Jane’s return forces her to finally address all of this.
It’s an excellent character based crime story with solid twists and turns.
As a teenager Jane Mooney admitted to murdering her abusive step-father before the cops were even sure that he was dead, and she was released when no body turned up. Jane then fled the small Arkansas town of Maud Bottoms, and she left behind her angry mother, her brother, her best friend, and her girlfriend in doing so. Twenty-five years later, the stepfather’s body has finally been discovered, and Jane has returned home believing that she’ll most likely be arrested immediately. She finds that her mother is still angry, her brother and best friend seem to want nothing to do with her, and her old girlfriend, Georgia Lee, is now a married woman as well as on the town council. And for some reason, the cops don’t seem to be in any hurry to arrest her.
Kelly Ford makes their most of the setting which feels lived in and authentic. From the trailer parks to the backyard barbecue of the more well-to-do folks, this nails all the traits of small town life. Against this backdrop we learn what actually happened with Jane, Georgia Lee and the stepfather back then as well as see how those events shaped their lives in the aftermath. Jane left and lived in other places as an openly gay women but has had a shadow over her adult life. Georgia Lee stayed in place and threw herself so fully into the role of a wife, mother, and local politician that she’s never bothered to ask the question of who she really is and what would make her actually happy, and Jane’s return forces her to finally address all of this.
It’s an excellent character based crime story with solid twists and turns.
August 4, 2022
I chose Real Bad Things as my first read for August.
I am going to the odd person out on this one - I found it to be tedious and extraordinarily dull. I skim read a great deal just to get to the end of the novel and find out "who-dun-it" as there were several options. Good character development but I think this story could have been told in fewer pages.
I am going to the odd person out on this one - I found it to be tedious and extraordinarily dull. I skim read a great deal just to get to the end of the novel and find out "who-dun-it" as there were several options. Good character development but I think this story could have been told in fewer pages.
May 21, 2022
Once upon a time, real bad things happened in Arkansas, and now 25 years later not much has changed. Families are toxic as ever and murder confessions are bouncing off every wall. This impressive thriller from Kelly J Ford features a number of well-crafted and complicated characters that crawl into your protective arms as you witness the prolonged trauma caused by shouldering secrets and internalized shame. Throw in a hateful small town, police that don’t protect, a rising missing persons count, and just wait for it � yeah, real bad things. Five stars!
Thank you to the following for permitting me access to an advance reader's copy (ARC) of . This generosity did not impact my honesty when rating/reviewing.
Source: NetGalley
Author: Kelly J. Ford
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genres: General Fiction (Adult), Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date: September 1, 2022
Thank you to the following for permitting me access to an advance reader's copy (ARC) of . This generosity did not impact my honesty when rating/reviewing.
Source: NetGalley
Author: Kelly J. Ford
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genres: General Fiction (Adult), Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date: September 1, 2022
September 1, 2022
FLOOOOOOOOAT FOR PUB DAY
🎵🎶🎵Oh give me a home where the doublewides roam and the skies are not cloudy all day 🎵🎶🎵
I am thankful for Shelby’s friendship for a plethora of reasons, but maybe none so much as her addiction to NetGalley and her late night texts that turn me on to books she knows I can’t live without. (And this one was even a Read Now!!!)
I have been waiting FOUR lonnnnnnng years for Kelly J. Ford to release her sophomore novel after the perfection which was Cottonmouths. To say this one didn’t disappoint would be a massive understatement. The story here starts off with . . . .
They found him. I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD. Time to come home. Time to pay for what YOU DONE.
Yummy yum yum. Nothing better than a “you can’t go home again.� Especially when said home is a trailer park and there’s a long dead stepdaddy involved. After that, it’s all about . . . .
#OhShitYall
#MaudMurderMystery
#LesbiansLesbiansLesbians
#SinnerSinnerChickenDinner
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wished for more of a “why� behind the big reveal, but that’s because I’m an entitled first worlder and need to get over myself. And you know how the old song goes �..
Kelly J. Ford is a hell of a storyteller. I’ll read her dang grocery list.
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
🎵🎶🎵Oh give me a home where the doublewides roam and the skies are not cloudy all day 🎵🎶🎵
I am thankful for Shelby’s friendship for a plethora of reasons, but maybe none so much as her addiction to NetGalley and her late night texts that turn me on to books she knows I can’t live without. (And this one was even a Read Now!!!)
I have been waiting FOUR lonnnnnnng years for Kelly J. Ford to release her sophomore novel after the perfection which was Cottonmouths. To say this one didn’t disappoint would be a massive understatement. The story here starts off with . . . .
They found him. I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD. Time to come home. Time to pay for what YOU DONE.
Yummy yum yum. Nothing better than a “you can’t go home again.� Especially when said home is a trailer park and there’s a long dead stepdaddy involved. After that, it’s all about . . . .
#OhShitYall
#MaudMurderMystery
#LesbiansLesbiansLesbians
#SinnerSinnerChickenDinner
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wished for more of a “why� behind the big reveal, but that’s because I’m an entitled first worlder and need to get over myself. And you know how the old song goes �..
Kelly J. Ford is a hell of a storyteller. I’ll read her dang grocery list.
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
January 7, 2022
I liked this book. It was a little different from what I normally read. The themes in this book at times were a little difficult to get through but it was a great read.
Jane Mooney’s abusive father, Warren disappeared one day, and she did it. Most people assumed Warren just got drunk and drowned in the river, but Jane knows the truth.
She confessed to the murder expecting to go to jail. However, without a body the police exclaimed technically there is no crime, and Jane was free. She took off for Boston and never looked back.
Twenty five years later, the river floods and Warren’s remains are discovered. It is all anyone is talking about. Upon hearing the news, Jane returns home ready to face the music. Not everyone is happy to see Jane. Some secrets should remain buried.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Jane Mooney’s abusive father, Warren disappeared one day, and she did it. Most people assumed Warren just got drunk and drowned in the river, but Jane knows the truth.
She confessed to the murder expecting to go to jail. However, without a body the police exclaimed technically there is no crime, and Jane was free. She took off for Boston and never looked back.
Twenty five years later, the river floods and Warren’s remains are discovered. It is all anyone is talking about. Upon hearing the news, Jane returns home ready to face the music. Not everyone is happy to see Jane. Some secrets should remain buried.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
August 24, 2022
I had to force myself to finish this book and I'm not sure why I did. I didn't care about any of the characters. I can tell you right now if I confessed to a murder I didn't commit I wouldn't return to the town where it happened, I get why she does some of what she does but the ending was a muddled, confusing mess. Moving on.
August 1, 2022
Real Bad Things is the second novel by award-winning American author, Kelly J. Ford. Recently jobless, homeless and romantically detached, a string of text messages from her ever-hostile mother is really all the impetus Jane Mooney needs to quit Boston and return to her Arkansas hometown, Maud. “They found him.� “I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD.� “Time to come home.� “Time to pay for what YOU DONE.�
Twenty-five years earlier, inexplicably breaking the solemn vow made with her younger brother, her best friend and her lover, Jane confessed to murdering her abusive stepfather, Warren Ingram, as soon as he was reported missing. Jane was arrested, but without a body, or evidence of a crime, the case couldn’t proceed. Jane left town as soon as she was released.
Now, she’s back to face the music but, new among the lazy, incompetent members of the Maud Police Department, Detective Benjamin Hampton isn’t ready to arrest her just yet. He’s asking awkward questions, and Jane feels the need to check that the other three are sticking to the agreed story. But, for over two decades, Jane has believed a version of what happened that, it turns out, is not quite correct.
Georgia Lee Lane is unhappily married with twin teenaged sons, manages the Maud Pharmacy, and has been a city councillor for fifteen years. But her opponent in the upcoming election has plenty of money to splash around, and she is already polling badly enough without her name being associated with Lezzie Borden, the nickname Jane acquired after her confession. But that’s exactly what the “Let’s Talk About Maud� Facebook group, run by a couple of auto body guys, is doing.
In order to survive, Georgia Lee has cast the events of twenty-five years earlier from her mind, but “Some days it felt like trouble hung around her like a coat she couldn’t cast off, weighing her down, no matter how good or kind or helpful she tried to be. It made her sweat. Restricted every forward motion so much that past deeds and present resentments swelled inside her.�
The story is told through alternating narratives from the perspectives of Jane and Georgia Lee, along with flashbacks to the time of the murder. Ford constructs her plot so skilfully that the astute reader who believes they have figured out exactly what happened to Warren Ingram still has a surprise or two in store, and even those who pick up on a few hints throughout the story are unlikely to predict the final, jaw-dropping, reveal.
Ford deftly conveys the Arkansas Bible-belt small-town mindset where “Who cared about crime when you had two women doing something people thought they ought not do?� Maud is painted as a place that revels in gossip and speculation spouted in print, screen and social media, where a strip of compromising photo-booth shots of two seventeen-year-old girls is deemed more important than competing confessions of murder.
While it is easy to empathise with some of the players, none of her characters is necessarily all that likeable: all have very human flaws, and while many are simply trying to get by as best they can, quite a few are downright despicable. Certain scenes in the later chapters are blackly funny, and Ford has a talent for descriptive prose: “words like justice and I told you so spitting out of her mouth like knives�. A brilliant slow-burn thriller!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer
Twenty-five years earlier, inexplicably breaking the solemn vow made with her younger brother, her best friend and her lover, Jane confessed to murdering her abusive stepfather, Warren Ingram, as soon as he was reported missing. Jane was arrested, but without a body, or evidence of a crime, the case couldn’t proceed. Jane left town as soon as she was released.
Now, she’s back to face the music but, new among the lazy, incompetent members of the Maud Police Department, Detective Benjamin Hampton isn’t ready to arrest her just yet. He’s asking awkward questions, and Jane feels the need to check that the other three are sticking to the agreed story. But, for over two decades, Jane has believed a version of what happened that, it turns out, is not quite correct.
Georgia Lee Lane is unhappily married with twin teenaged sons, manages the Maud Pharmacy, and has been a city councillor for fifteen years. But her opponent in the upcoming election has plenty of money to splash around, and she is already polling badly enough without her name being associated with Lezzie Borden, the nickname Jane acquired after her confession. But that’s exactly what the “Let’s Talk About Maud� Facebook group, run by a couple of auto body guys, is doing.
In order to survive, Georgia Lee has cast the events of twenty-five years earlier from her mind, but “Some days it felt like trouble hung around her like a coat she couldn’t cast off, weighing her down, no matter how good or kind or helpful she tried to be. It made her sweat. Restricted every forward motion so much that past deeds and present resentments swelled inside her.�
The story is told through alternating narratives from the perspectives of Jane and Georgia Lee, along with flashbacks to the time of the murder. Ford constructs her plot so skilfully that the astute reader who believes they have figured out exactly what happened to Warren Ingram still has a surprise or two in store, and even those who pick up on a few hints throughout the story are unlikely to predict the final, jaw-dropping, reveal.
Ford deftly conveys the Arkansas Bible-belt small-town mindset where “Who cared about crime when you had two women doing something people thought they ought not do?� Maud is painted as a place that revels in gossip and speculation spouted in print, screen and social media, where a strip of compromising photo-booth shots of two seventeen-year-old girls is deemed more important than competing confessions of murder.
While it is easy to empathise with some of the players, none of her characters is necessarily all that likeable: all have very human flaws, and while many are simply trying to get by as best they can, quite a few are downright despicable. Certain scenes in the later chapters are blackly funny, and Ford has a talent for descriptive prose: “words like justice and I told you so spitting out of her mouth like knives�. A brilliant slow-burn thriller!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer
July 7, 2022
Twenty-five years ago, Jane Mooney confessed to murdering her stepfather � but with no body, the police decided not to charge her. She’s spent those years as far as she could get from her hometown of Maud, along the banks of the Arkansas River.
But nothing stays lost forever, and when a flood brings Warren’s body back to the attention of the living, Jane finally heads home, to deal with the past, and with the family she thought she’d left behind forever.
Kelly J Ford does an uncomfortably good job at portraying the claustrophobia of small towns, where everyone knows your business and gossip runs faster than any official media could keep up with. It wasn’t just Jane who was there on that fateful night, but her confession kept the others out of the limelight, leaving her as the one to bear the attention and the whispers. As soon as she sets foot in Maud, the reader is pulled along with her, and you can almost feel the whispers and the sidelong looks as she does.
Real Bad Things unfolds between the present and the past, and it doesn’t take long to see that there’s much more to the story than Jane initially admits to. As complicated as the past situation might be, it’s the current timeline of the book where the author really unleashes her talent for intricate storytelling. Each character has developed over time, in ways that might be surprising, but that feel true to them as the reader gets to know them.
With layers of storytelling portraying generational trauma, small towns and the unbearable confines their scrutiny can place on anyone who feels different, and the unbreakable bonds that adversity can forge, Real Bad Things is sometimes a hard read, but always an excellent one. Readers looking for slow burn mystery with unforgettable characters and an unforgettable atmosphere will find here exactly what they need.
This review first appeared at
But nothing stays lost forever, and when a flood brings Warren’s body back to the attention of the living, Jane finally heads home, to deal with the past, and with the family she thought she’d left behind forever.
Kelly J Ford does an uncomfortably good job at portraying the claustrophobia of small towns, where everyone knows your business and gossip runs faster than any official media could keep up with. It wasn’t just Jane who was there on that fateful night, but her confession kept the others out of the limelight, leaving her as the one to bear the attention and the whispers. As soon as she sets foot in Maud, the reader is pulled along with her, and you can almost feel the whispers and the sidelong looks as she does.
Real Bad Things unfolds between the present and the past, and it doesn’t take long to see that there’s much more to the story than Jane initially admits to. As complicated as the past situation might be, it’s the current timeline of the book where the author really unleashes her talent for intricate storytelling. Each character has developed over time, in ways that might be surprising, but that feel true to them as the reader gets to know them.
With layers of storytelling portraying generational trauma, small towns and the unbearable confines their scrutiny can place on anyone who feels different, and the unbreakable bonds that adversity can forge, Real Bad Things is sometimes a hard read, but always an excellent one. Readers looking for slow burn mystery with unforgettable characters and an unforgettable atmosphere will find here exactly what they need.
This review first appeared at
October 26, 2022
DNF. A bit mundane for my taste.
September 16, 2022
They had no idea what women like her could do. What women like her had done.
initial reaction:Really enjoyable! Hopefully I can put some coherent words together and talk about the characters and plot and all that. But for right now, this is all I have.
Fire bad. Tree pretty. Book good.
—ĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔ�
two weeks after reading: My brain has been full of real bad things. The usual existential dread and ever-present depression. But also. This delightful book called Real Bad Things.
Delightful is probably a strange choice of words to describe a novel full of character driven explorations of trauma. But the execution - the atmosphere, the strained and complex relationships, the delicate balance of emotion - it's, well, delightful.
's ability to write complicated characters is what really makes the backbone of the book. 25 years after she confessed to murdering her stepfather, Jane Mooney, aka "Lezzie Borden," returns to her hometown. A body has been pulled from the river, igniting the town of Maud Bottoms with tales of missing men and fueling dormant rumor mills. Now that Jane's home, unresolved trauma resurfaces, old flames are rekindled, and secrets are just dying to be uncovered.
Meanness. That’s what Jane remembered, stitched onto every wound that didn’t work its way out of her skin and all the ones that did.
I suppose this is technically a murder mystery. After all, there is a mystery. And murder. But at its core, it's about characters and relationships. The mystery is just a good side dish to pair with the main course of beautiful character work. And to have two POVs and flashbacks, all executed cleanly, is just the cherry on top.
I could go on about Jane and Georgia Lee ALL DAY. The tender idyllic romance of their teenage years counterposed against the fear and weight of the tentative reconciliation amid less than ideal circumstances - chef's kiss
They both have serious unresolved issues, but these issues don't feel slapped on to simply give the characters flaws. Georgia Lee acutely feels the loss of her identity amid her roles as wife and mother, as well as pressure in a small town to bury her feelings (both past and present) towards Jane. As for Jane, she's dealing with a whole heap of judgement and guilt, desperate to protect those around her, all the while feeling ostracized for her publicly scandalous past and her identity as an androgynous, queer woman.
Not to mention her heartbreaking mommy issues.
Everyone talked about the bond of a mother’s love. But that wasn’t true. It was harder the other way around. Harder to separate and let go of the first person who knew her; the first to hurt her.
I don't want to give away the ending, but I wasn't totally thrilled by it. It was a LOT of stuff crammed into the last 10% of the story. From a thematic POV, it tracks and is satisfying in that aspect. I just wish a few things had come off a bit differently.
I don't know if my ramblings have done this book any sort of justice. Just pretend this was a fabulous essay that completely mesmerized you, that was both well written and convincing of Real Bad Thiings's many merits.
Ultimately, I have my quibbles with it, but the book as a whole is a gem for sure.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
pre-reading exclamation of excitement: New in 2022! Proof that the book gods do love me.
initial reaction:Really enjoyable! Hopefully I can put some coherent words together and talk about the characters and plot and all that. But for right now, this is all I have.
Fire bad. Tree pretty. Book good.
—ĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔĔ�
two weeks after reading: My brain has been full of real bad things. The usual existential dread and ever-present depression. But also. This delightful book called Real Bad Things.
Delightful is probably a strange choice of words to describe a novel full of character driven explorations of trauma. But the execution - the atmosphere, the strained and complex relationships, the delicate balance of emotion - it's, well, delightful.
's ability to write complicated characters is what really makes the backbone of the book. 25 years after she confessed to murdering her stepfather, Jane Mooney, aka "Lezzie Borden," returns to her hometown. A body has been pulled from the river, igniting the town of Maud Bottoms with tales of missing men and fueling dormant rumor mills. Now that Jane's home, unresolved trauma resurfaces, old flames are rekindled, and secrets are just dying to be uncovered.
Meanness. That’s what Jane remembered, stitched onto every wound that didn’t work its way out of her skin and all the ones that did.
I suppose this is technically a murder mystery. After all, there is a mystery. And murder. But at its core, it's about characters and relationships. The mystery is just a good side dish to pair with the main course of beautiful character work. And to have two POVs and flashbacks, all executed cleanly, is just the cherry on top.
I could go on about Jane and Georgia Lee ALL DAY. The tender idyllic romance of their teenage years counterposed against the fear and weight of the tentative reconciliation amid less than ideal circumstances - chef's kiss
They both have serious unresolved issues, but these issues don't feel slapped on to simply give the characters flaws. Georgia Lee acutely feels the loss of her identity amid her roles as wife and mother, as well as pressure in a small town to bury her feelings (both past and present) towards Jane. As for Jane, she's dealing with a whole heap of judgement and guilt, desperate to protect those around her, all the while feeling ostracized for her publicly scandalous past and her identity as an androgynous, queer woman.
Not to mention her heartbreaking mommy issues.
Everyone talked about the bond of a mother’s love. But that wasn’t true. It was harder the other way around. Harder to separate and let go of the first person who knew her; the first to hurt her.
I don't want to give away the ending, but I wasn't totally thrilled by it. It was a LOT of stuff crammed into the last 10% of the story. From a thematic POV, it tracks and is satisfying in that aspect. I just wish a few things had come off a bit differently.
I don't know if my ramblings have done this book any sort of justice. Just pretend this was a fabulous essay that completely mesmerized you, that was both well written and convincing of Real Bad Thiings's many merits.
Ultimately, I have my quibbles with it, but the book as a whole is a gem for sure.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
pre-reading exclamation of excitement: New in 2022! Proof that the book gods do love me.
September 7, 2022
This book is Real Bad. I wanted to like it and only didn’t give it 1 star because I kept wanting to read it with hopes that it would get better and all pull together. I didn’t like a single character and for me it never pulled together.
***Spoilers below***
Why?!?!
Why did Jane go back home to her horrible mother which is where this story started?
Why did Diane hate Jane so much?
Why did Jason ignore Jane for long periods of time and then all of a sudden go to the police?
Why did Jane and Georgia Lee seem so confused throughout the book?
Why was Georgia Lee was so self centered and why didn’t her kids care more about her and her them?
Why would Georgia Lee leave $5,000 of her life savings under an unwatched flower pot.
I found it too unbelievable that Georgia Lee & Jane still loved each other after all these years apart.
And that Diane “made him do it� except for Warren and that all of this wrap up was glossed over so quickly.
And I really hated how immature Jane seemed in the ending scenes.
***Spoilers below***
Why?!?!
Why did Jane go back home to her horrible mother which is where this story started?
Why did Diane hate Jane so much?
Why did Jason ignore Jane for long periods of time and then all of a sudden go to the police?
Why did Jane and Georgia Lee seem so confused throughout the book?
Why was Georgia Lee was so self centered and why didn’t her kids care more about her and her them?
Why would Georgia Lee leave $5,000 of her life savings under an unwatched flower pot.
I found it too unbelievable that Georgia Lee & Jane still loved each other after all these years apart.
And that Diane “made him do it� except for Warren and that all of this wrap up was glossed over so quickly.
And I really hated how immature Jane seemed in the ending scenes.
August 11, 2022
3.5 stars
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.
For more reviews, visit
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.
For more reviews, visit
August 26, 2022
Rep: lesbian mc, bi mc, biracial Vietnamese American side character, Black side character
CWs: domestic abuse, lesbophobia, implied sexual abuse, sexual assault, overdose
Galley provided by publisher
Real Bad Things was, despite my rating, not a bad book. It just wasn’t a book that particularly grabbed me at any stage. I honestly couldn’t say why this is. As I said, it’s not a bad book. It just ended up not being a book I felt very much about.
The story follows Jane, who is returning home, believing herself about to be arrested for the murder of her stepfather, which she confessed to twenty-odd years before, after a body was found in the river. Her return forces her to reckon with the lies she and the others involved told at the time.
I think the primary reason for this was I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about the characters or their relationships, or anything that I should have cared about to make me at all interested in the book. I cannot say why—it’s nothing I can really point to based on the book itself. Perhaps it was my mood, but whatever the reason it meant, in a book where probably caring about the characters made or broke my enjoyment of it, I hadn’t started off on the right foot.
The plot could have been compelling, that’s the thing. There was enough in the mystery that I was at least interested in all that. But because I was ambivalent about the characters, I never found it more than okay.
It also left me with a lot of questions, chief amongst which was, just why did Diane hate her daughter that much? I suppose Jane never gets the question answered so it makes sense that we don’t either, but then. Couldn’t it have been hinted at? Something? Because, based on what we saw, it feels like that wasn’t enough to generate the vitriol it did.
However, I think my major conclusion here is that, once again it feels like, this was just a book that hit me at the wrong time.
August 19, 2022
An alternate title to this book could be "The Book That Wouldn't End."
The premise of this book sounded interesting, and I was invested for the first half. We go back and forth between both Jane and Georgia Lee's point of view throughout the book and glimpses into what they thought happened that night.
The problem is that's all the majority of this book is -- repetitive internal dialogue, especially from Georgia Lee, who I grew tired of hearing from pretty early on.
And after all of that (repetitive) build-up, did we as readers get any answers? Not really -- the ending left me with even more questions. I guess that wouldn't have bothered me had it not been for the VERY RUSHED ending. I think this would have been a better book had the second half focused on what we (sort of) learn by the end and go into more details about that, instead of more "woe-is-me" Georgia Lee.
And the twist? How could that have been allowed to happen, especially with the hints of other cases throughout the years?
I don't know -- lots of good reviews for this one, so maybe I missed something.
The premise of this book sounded interesting, and I was invested for the first half. We go back and forth between both Jane and Georgia Lee's point of view throughout the book and glimpses into what they thought happened that night.
The problem is that's all the majority of this book is -- repetitive internal dialogue, especially from Georgia Lee, who I grew tired of hearing from pretty early on.
And after all of that (repetitive) build-up, did we as readers get any answers? Not really -- the ending left me with even more questions. I guess that wouldn't have bothered me had it not been for the VERY RUSHED ending. I think this would have been a better book had the second half focused on what we (sort of) learn by the end and go into more details about that, instead of more "woe-is-me" Georgia Lee.
And the twist? How could that have been allowed to happen, especially with the hints of other cases throughout the years?
I don't know -- lots of good reviews for this one, so maybe I missed something.
September 15, 2022
I think this was a decent book but I didn't enjoy it. I had a hard time getting into the characters and there was also a romance side theme and those of you who read my reviews know that I always run from romance! The story centers on Jane, who returns home to her small town in the Southern US after the body of her stepfather is recovered- the stepfather she confessed to killing 20 years ago. There is some mystery around the murder itself and also the chance for Jane to rekindle her relationship with the one that got away, as well as see if there is any way to save the relationship with her mother.
Though there is action in this book, I didn't connect with Jane, or any of the characters really, and I never did figure out why Jane's mom was so viscerally disgusted by anything that had to do with Jane. The end was somewhat of a surprise but I just couldn't get into it- I think I lack patience for small town politics as well as the aforementioned romance.
Overall, I think it is a well-written book but was just not the book for me. Hope others love it. This was an Amazon first read book- thanks to Amazon and the publisher for providing me a copy of the book!
Though there is action in this book, I didn't connect with Jane, or any of the characters really, and I never did figure out why Jane's mom was so viscerally disgusted by anything that had to do with Jane. The end was somewhat of a surprise but I just couldn't get into it- I think I lack patience for small town politics as well as the aforementioned romance.
Overall, I think it is a well-written book but was just not the book for me. Hope others love it. This was an Amazon first read book- thanks to Amazon and the publisher for providing me a copy of the book!
January 13, 2022
This is a good, fast paced story, I only awarded it 3 stars rather than 4 because it was a tad predictable towards the end, other than that, it’s a great read.
Well worth a read if you like a good psychological thriller!
Well worth a read if you like a good psychological thriller!
January 20, 2022
I’ve never read the author before � this was my first read from her, but definitely not my last!
The author knows how to build characters. I felt like I knew each and every one of them. They aren’t sweet and pretty, but they have depth and manage to live and breathe on the page. She also has a deft hand with setting. I’ve never been to Arkansas and I’ll admit that my knowledge of the state is woefully sparse. I loved learning a little more about it and having some of my prior impressions turned upside down!
Our mystery itself surprised me. At first, I thought it was a rather simple one. Nope. There are some wonderfully dark and unexpected things about this one!
I did find myself wishing our main character had made a very different decision in the end. It’s probably a good sign that I was so disappointed in her � it meant that I was feeling her so much and wanted her to end up right.
A good, sharp and modern thriller!
*ARC via Publisher
The author knows how to build characters. I felt like I knew each and every one of them. They aren’t sweet and pretty, but they have depth and manage to live and breathe on the page. She also has a deft hand with setting. I’ve never been to Arkansas and I’ll admit that my knowledge of the state is woefully sparse. I loved learning a little more about it and having some of my prior impressions turned upside down!
Our mystery itself surprised me. At first, I thought it was a rather simple one. Nope. There are some wonderfully dark and unexpected things about this one!
I did find myself wishing our main character had made a very different decision in the end. It’s probably a good sign that I was so disappointed in her � it meant that I was feeling her so much and wanted her to end up right.
A good, sharp and modern thriller!
*ARC via Publisher
August 17, 2022
I never have given only one star to a novel, but……�..Real Bad Things had to be the most ridiculous, tiring and verbally abusive read ever. The plot was dumb, the characters totally forgettable and the writing was sophomoric. None of the main characters exuded any form of sympathy or reality. If people like this really exist somewhere in this country then we are truly doomed.
September 1, 2022
I've read Ford's other books and liked them. They're gritty and not for everyone but I liked them. This one was too .... I don't know. It wasn't for me. I made it all the way through but it took the entire month and several re-starts.
August 2, 2022
I think that as a whole "Real Bad Things" by Kelly J Ford is okay--good, even. BUT, I found so many little things annoying or just...ridiculous that I couldn't really relax and enjoy it.
Jane is called home after 25 years. A body has been found and it's said to be her stepfather. The one that she once confessed to killing. Upon her return, she's treated as the town pariah, a true crime celebrity. Her mother allows her to stay at her trailer, however she is not treated with any sort of warmth. She is used for her money, and nothing else.
Georgia Lee, Jane's former girlfriend and now current city councilwoman, is torn between reconnecting with her friend or keeping up appearances due to the upcoming election.
The women know the truth of what happened that night and what they promised to never tell.
The twist in the book kind of came out of nowhere. And honestly....it was better than the 70% of the rest of the book. It was too much dialogue and too much back and forth leading up to the twist. I think that it was far too much back story and back and forth between Jane and Georgia Lee than necessary.
This book deals with heavy topics and it's not something that should be taken lightly. I feel there's a lot of other things that could have been covered that were just lightly covered (sexuality, sexuality identity, sexuality discrimination, etc) that could have been explored more than others that could have made the story so much more compelling.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Jane is called home after 25 years. A body has been found and it's said to be her stepfather. The one that she once confessed to killing. Upon her return, she's treated as the town pariah, a true crime celebrity. Her mother allows her to stay at her trailer, however she is not treated with any sort of warmth. She is used for her money, and nothing else.
Georgia Lee, Jane's former girlfriend and now current city councilwoman, is torn between reconnecting with her friend or keeping up appearances due to the upcoming election.
The women know the truth of what happened that night and what they promised to never tell.
The twist in the book kind of came out of nowhere. And honestly....it was better than the 70% of the rest of the book. It was too much dialogue and too much back and forth leading up to the twist. I think that it was far too much back story and back and forth between Jane and Georgia Lee than necessary.
This book deals with heavy topics and it's not something that should be taken lightly. I feel there's a lot of other things that could have been covered that were just lightly covered (sexuality, sexuality identity, sexuality discrimination, etc) that could have been explored more than others that could have made the story so much more compelling.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
April 18, 2022
I am going to call it now, on August 9, 2022, Real Bad Things, is going to break the internet.
Easter weekend was supposed to be spent with my family, that is exactly what DID NOT happen.
I was completely sucked in and consumed by this book. Real Bad Things, instantly captivated my attention and took my breath away.
Why did this book take me so long to pick up?
There is no way you will ever be able to figure out what is going on before it happens. This is a character driven novel that will keep you in suspense the entire time. The build up leading to the big twist was done with precision and perfectly executed. This book could have gone in so many different directions and Kelly Ford led you down a rabbit hole of possibilities.
I was completely and totally obsessed with this book and I will forever recommend this one to fellow thrill lovers. Kelly Ford deserves every bit of success headed her way when this book releases. This book screams bestseller.
Big Thank you to Netgalley, Kelly J. Ford, and Thomas & Mercer, for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book before the big release!
Easter weekend was supposed to be spent with my family, that is exactly what DID NOT happen.
I was completely sucked in and consumed by this book. Real Bad Things, instantly captivated my attention and took my breath away.
Why did this book take me so long to pick up?
There is no way you will ever be able to figure out what is going on before it happens. This is a character driven novel that will keep you in suspense the entire time. The build up leading to the big twist was done with precision and perfectly executed. This book could have gone in so many different directions and Kelly Ford led you down a rabbit hole of possibilities.
I was completely and totally obsessed with this book and I will forever recommend this one to fellow thrill lovers. Kelly Ford deserves every bit of success headed her way when this book releases. This book screams bestseller.
Big Thank you to Netgalley, Kelly J. Ford, and Thomas & Mercer, for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book before the big release!
September 9, 2023
I had such high hopes for this book based on the blurb. It sounded like a novel that you can really get stuck into. But nope.
It’s VERY slow even from the start. I did get drawn to the main character and her lifestyle of poverty and lack. I did get a good sense of what her life is like.
The plot sadly has a lot of holes in it, a lot of unrealistic events that just would not happen. Toted as a book where a serial killer is at work it just has zero tension, dynamics or surprising twists or reveals.
I struggled to finish it and had hoped for a spectacular turnaround but it didn’t happen. Only 2 stars for this one.
Thanks so much for reading my review! If you’d like to connect you can send me a friend request. 🐱
She needed books like others need air to live.
It’s VERY slow even from the start. I did get drawn to the main character and her lifestyle of poverty and lack. I did get a good sense of what her life is like.
The plot sadly has a lot of holes in it, a lot of unrealistic events that just would not happen. Toted as a book where a serial killer is at work it just has zero tension, dynamics or surprising twists or reveals.
I struggled to finish it and had hoped for a spectacular turnaround but it didn’t happen. Only 2 stars for this one.
Thanks so much for reading my review! If you’d like to connect you can send me a friend request. 🐱
She needed books like others need air to live.
August 3, 2022
3 stars is really higher than I want to give it. Maybe 2.5. Picked it as a First Read. The energy of the writing and pacing is good. I picked it partly because some reviews said it had atmosphere. It does...but it's pretty minimal.
This is a love story told alternately by 2 people in emotional turmoil. I found all the ups and downs of their moods and impulses exhausting and a little tedious.
The actual thriller part--the "real bad things," we only get a little sideview into that history and how it affected the characters involved. I think that would have been a more interesting story.
This is a love story told alternately by 2 people in emotional turmoil. I found all the ups and downs of their moods and impulses exhausting and a little tedious.
The actual thriller part--the "real bad things," we only get a little sideview into that history and how it affected the characters involved. I think that would have been a more interesting story.
August 5, 2022
I have mixed feelings about this book. It moved very slowly and maybe some of that was on purpose but I didn't enjoy it.. At the same time, there were many interesting things about it. A lesbian, butch returning home after the remains were found of a man she confessed to murdering, an abusive step father. It explores her family dynamics with her distant brother, who she was over protective of and her mother who was abusive and unloving to her. It also explores racism, a past love and small town Southern life.
February 23, 2022
This twisty and gritty Southern noir keeps you guessing as it digs deep into the hearts and souls of its characters and brings Arkansas to life with poetry, pathos and unflinching precision. It has all the things I love most in fiction: a propulsive plot, gorgeous, sharp writing, twists you don't see coming, characters that tear at your heart, and an ending that both surprises and sends an emotional tremor through you. I highly recommend Real Bad Things!
November 2, 2021
Acclaimed author Kelly J. Ford spins a propulsive, sophisticated, and fearlessly queer tour-de-force in REAL BAD THINGS. Ford’s richly-drawn characters and breathtaking storytelling create an inescapable undertow of menace that will not let go until the final, shocking page. This is gothic suspense at its most haunting.
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