APRIL 2014 - AudioFile
Three narrators alternate as the author paints the isolated Ozark Mountains and the small-town setting of McHugh’s crime novel. With gentle Southern accents and relaxed tempos, they portray the youthfulness and naïveté of Lila and Lucy, the mother and daughter whose parallel narratives dominate the story. However, what works to illustrate character also decreases the gravity of the novel’s dark crimes: kidnapping, forced prostitution, and gruesome murders. Each of the narrators delivers a strong performance, but their voices sound similar enough to confuse a listener who is not paying strict attention. While this is an audiobook well worth a listen, a more varied sound in the narration team, possibly by including a male, would have taken the production to a higher level. J.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
11/11/2013
In this clever, multilayered debut, McHugh deftly explores the past of an Ozark Mountain family (think doublewides, pickups, and possum stew) with plenty to hide and the ruthlessness to keep their secrets hidden. Seventeen-year-old Lucy Dane, from Henbane, Mo., is grieving for her murdered friend, Cheri, and her mother, Lila, who vanished soon after Lucy was born. Determined to solve both mysteries, Lucy never realizes just how close the answers might lie. Her father, Carl, and her uncle, Crete, are not forthcoming about what they know, which only makes her more curious. McHugh alternates narrators, presenting each chapter from one character’s perspective, but the most compelling is Lila’s (given in flashbacks to her arrival in the area 18 years earlier, as a contract farm employee of Uncle Crete). Young Lila’s hopes for a fresh start after a childhood spent bouncing from one foster home to another are dashed when she painfully learns that Crete plans to put her to work as a prostitute. In the present, Lucy uncovers evidence that puts her in jeopardy, leading to sudden, surprising violence, followed by a tornado that helps wipe the slate clean. This is an outstanding first novel, replete with suspense, crisp dialogue, and vivid Ozarks color and atmosphere. Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand, Union Literary. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
A fantastic novel, rich in character and atmosphere . . . This is one you won’t want to miss.”—Karin Slaughter, author of Unseen
“Laura McHugh’s vivid and enthralling The Weight of Blood centers on a mother and daughter in a seemingly benign yet deeply horrifying small town. It kept me on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last.”—Vanessa Diffenbaugh, author of The Language of Flowers
“The Weight of Blood pulled me in and wouldn’t let go. What starts as Lucy’s coming-of-age story becomes a chilling tale about the price of secrets. As the menace deepens, so does the tension. Laura McHugh has written a terrific novel.”—Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award–winning author of The Shadow Tracer
“McHugh’s debut is as lush and evocative as its Ozark setting, with luminous prose and characters you can’t help rooting for, even as the mystery surrounding them intensifies and the odds against them grow more and more harrowing. I couldn’t put it down.”—Carla Buckley, author of The Deepest Secret
“In this clever, multilayered debut, McHugh deftly explores the past of an Ozark Mountain family . . . with plenty to hide and the ruthlessness to keep their secrets hidden. . . . This is an outstanding first novel, replete with suspense, crisp dialogue, and vivid Ozarks color and atmosphere.”—Publishers Weekly
“Debut novelist McHugh comes out swinging with this gripping tale set in the Ozarks of Missouri. . . . Her prose will not only keep readers turning the pages but also paints a real and believable portrait of the connections, alliances, and sacrifices that underpin rural, small-town life in Henbane.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“In this riveting debut, Laura McHugh weaves together the stories of two women, separated by a generation, who each reveal pieces of a story that gains momentum and power as its shape becomes clear. This novel will keep you up all night.”—Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
“Once I picked up Laura McHugh’s The Weight of Blood, I couldn’t put it down. I kept turning pages long into the night, bewitched by the enchanting Ozark landscape and the haunting murder mystery at its heart. The Weight of Blood is the kind of novel that leaves the reader breathless and wanting more.”—Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
“An elegant time bomb of a novel, a coming-of age story that holds you captive from the first sentence and doesn’t let go of you after the last.”—Tracy Guzeman, author of The Gravity of Birds
“[A] suspenseful novel, with a barn burner of a plot . . . McHugh shows herself to be a compelling writer intimately familiar with rural poverty and small-town weirdness.”—Booklist
APRIL 2014 - AudioFile
Three narrators alternate as the author paints the isolated Ozark Mountains and the small-town setting of McHugh’s crime novel. With gentle Southern accents and relaxed tempos, they portray the youthfulness and naïveté of Lila and Lucy, the mother and daughter whose parallel narratives dominate the story. However, what works to illustrate character also decreases the gravity of the novel’s dark crimes: kidnapping, forced prostitution, and gruesome murders. Each of the narrators delivers a strong performance, but their voices sound similar enough to confuse a listener who is not paying strict attention. While this is an audiobook well worth a listen, a more varied sound in the narration team, possibly by including a male, would have taken the production to a higher level. J.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-01-23
A teenager investigates a friend's murder and learns much more than she bargained for. McHugh's debut interweaves two parallel stories, set almost two decades apart. We begin with Lucy, who relates that the dismembered body of her school friend Cheri, a mentally disabled 18-year-old who had been missing a year, was found near a creek outside the remote town of Henbane, in the Missouri Ozarks. Approximately 18 years earlier, Lila, a young Iowa woman who has just aged out of foster care, is placed by an agency in a job with Crete Dane, who owns Dane's, a restaurant/general store, and a lot of other Henbane real estate. Lila's job is supposed to include room and board, but the room is a stifling one in Crete's garage, the food is intermittent, and Crete withholds most of her pay. Back in the present, Lucy, 17, has just taken a summer job with her uncle Crete. Mostly, her duties involve waitressing at Dane's, but when she and another teenager, Daniel, are assigned to clean out a remote trailer in the woods, the teens notice obvious signs of a struggle and something else: a necklace that Lucy had given Cheri. This discovery sends Lucy and Daniel on a quest to find Cheri's killer. Meanwhile, in the past, Lila, whose beauty both enthralls and disturbs Henbane's downtrodden townsfolk, learns the real nature of her job: Crete plans to force her into prostitution. Enraged that she prefers his brother Carl, Crete rapes Lila and inflicts a festering bite, then holds Lila captive in her garage room until Carl intervenes, eventually leading to an intersection of past and present. McHugh's evocation of the rugged setting and local speech patterns starkly reveals the menace lurking beneath Henbane's folksy facade. However, a misguided authorial attempt to find the good in Crete only muddies the novel's moral waters, since nothing can mitigate or redeem the evil he inflicts. An accomplished literary thriller.
