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The Weight of Blood  By  cover art

The Weight of Blood

By: Laura McHugh
Narrated by: Dorothy Dillingham Blue, Shannon McManus, Sofia Willingham
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Editorial reviews

"[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)

Publisher's summary

For fans of Gillian Flynn, Scott Smith, and Daniel Woodrell comes a gripping, suspenseful novel about two mysterious disappearances a generation apart.

INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD WINNER AND BARRY AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
BOOKPAGE

The town of Henbane sits deep in the Ozark Mountains. Folks there still whisper about Lucy Dane’s mother, a bewitching stranger who appeared long enough to marry Carl Dane and then vanished when Lucy was just a child. Now on the brink of adulthood, Lucy experiences another loss when her friend Cheri disappears and is then found murdered, her body placed on display for all to see. Lucy’s family has deep roots in the Ozarks, part of a community that is fiercely protective of its own. Yet despite her close ties to the land, and despite her family’s influence, Lucy—darkly beautiful as her mother was—is always thought of by those around her as her mother’s daughter. When Cheri disappears, Lucy is haunted by the two lost girls—the mother she never knew and the friend she couldn’t save—and sets out with the help of a local boy, Daniel, to uncover the mystery behind Cheri’s death.

What Lucy discovers is a secret that pervades the secluded Missouri hills, and beyond that horrific revelation is a more personal one concerning what happened to her mother more than a decade earlier.

The Weight of Blood is an urgent look at the dark side of a bucolic landscape beyond the arm of the law, where a person can easily disappear without a trace. Laura McHugh proves herself a masterly storyteller who has created a harsh and tangled terrain as alive and unforgettable as the characters who inhabit it. Her mesmerizing debut is a compelling exploration of the meaning of family: the sacrifices we make, the secrets we keep, and the lengths to which we will go to protect the ones we love.

©2014 Laura McHugh (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“[An] expertly crafted thriller.”Entertainment Weekly, “The Must List”

“With her riveting debut, The Weight of Blood, Laura McHugh makes a strong bid at cementing a new tradition of regional crime fiction while keeping tourism low in the Ozarks. . . . [A] powerful sense of place is the anchor of The Weight of Blood. The well-drawn townspeople and oppressive, dread-soaked atmosphere sprout from the soil of Henbane. . . . The prose is strong, with evocative paint strokes in all the right places. McHugh is an artful, efficient writer who tells her story in vicious blows. . . . McHugh has crafted a sharp, haunting tale of blood in the Ozarks, as substantial as it is pleasurable to read.”Los Angeles Times

“Laura McHugh’s atmospheric debut, The Weight of Blood . . . conjures a menacingly beautiful Ozark setting and a nest of poisonous family secrets reminiscent of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone.”Vogue

What listeners say about The Weight of Blood

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Weighty Hype Unfulfilled

Lila came to Henbane under duplicitous circumstances, disappearing from a seemingly happy life. Present day daughter Lucy searches for clues to her friend's murder and mother's past. The characters in this backwoods, gritty story are well drawn out and McHugh's writing style is fluid and easy. The first 3/4 of the book kept my attention and enjoyed the narrator for Lila (Shanon McManus?). Lucy's story was mildly immature and didn't care for the narrator's voice. While waiting for the final big reveal, the book ended. Oops, hate it when that happens. Found this entertaining, but cannot hold a candle to "Winter's Bone".

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not too bad but you have to pay attention.

This is a good but not great book. There are two major characters and two plot lines so it gets confusing if you do not pay attention. The book jumps back and forth between the two just about every chapter so you have to figure out where you are in time. Since there is one narrator and she does not change her voice that much between the two women characters (mother and daughter) you find yourself trying to figure out what story line you are listening to. They are related but not the same. Most of the other characters are in both so it can be even more confusing. This might be better a better kindle than audible book for that reason.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Poor Man's "Winters Bone"

Based on the reviews I thought this would be good. It's average at best. I don't see the hype about Ozarks as this could have been anywhere. Performance was so-so. I wouldn't recommend unless this was drastically on sale.

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18 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Winter's Bone & Gone Girl--NOT!

Okay, so the protagonist is a young girl living in the Ozarks. Long ago, her mother disappeared without explanation. Don't buy the hype -- while mildly entertaining, the quality of the writing, the sophistication of the plot (including way too much "young romance"), and the depth of character development compare poorly with Woodrell and Flynn. Not a BAD read, but setting up the listener to expect another Winter's Bone or Gone Girl didn't do McHugh any favors.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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Nancy Drew in the Ozarks

The author had an interesting premise for a mystery with a potentially atmospheric setting. But she failed to fulfill that promise through uneven pacing and mediocre character development. Using the mother-daughter narrative lines to relate two separate disappearances allowed us to experience the mysteries of both, but also formed a relentlessly symmetric feel to the whole, right down to the father-boyfriend connections. These four characters were so similar as to be interchangeable, and all of the supporting characters remained flat. There was no sense of time passing because the two story lines sounded exactly alike. Clues dropped too early placed the reader so far ahead in the plot that the effect was of impatience for the characters to catch up rather than feeling the tension of a plot thickening.

There should have been a much darker tone to a story filled with such nasty goings-on in a region that is close minded and superstitious. Especially since the community supposedly thought of the first vanished woman as a witch, just because she appeared from the exotic planet of Iowa. But the tone was not dark, and the residents of the small town just came across as rude, not fearfully superstitious. At one point as Lucy is digging into her mother’s mystery, she made a “Nancy Drew” reference to herself, and that encapsulated what I found wrong with this story – a YA level plot trying to be grown up. I pushed through to the end, but it felt like a push with an ultimately disappointing ending.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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I am a fan of Gillian Flynn and now a fan of Laura

I know I'm not right in the head sometimes because I really enjoy the dark twisty stuff in this novel and the mystery that unfolds. I like the back and forth story telling that eventually comes together. I am a big fan of Gillian Flynns and though this novel isn't as dark as Dark Places or Sharp Objects - It is definitely a good story.

J

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7 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Intriguing

This story is fascinating and suspenseful, and I enjoyed it, but the end left me feeling a little unsatisfied. The plot resolves about 3/4 of the way through, but it takes a while to realize, "Oh, that's it then." The last quarter feels like another major revelation should occur - instead, things simply wind down and the book ends.

This is still a good read, with well-drawn characters, a compelling plot, and lovely writing. Happy I took a chance on this.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Uncle Creep's Mountain Girls

Ms. McHugh has written an excellent first novel, a story told from the perspective of multiple narrators, but primarily by a mother and a daughter, with related story lines 17 years apart in time. The novel has one of the most despicable villains in all of recent literature.

The eponymous quote:
"You grow up feeling the weight of blood, of family. There's no forsaking kin but you can't help when kin forsakes you or when strangers come to be family."
*****

Using a suspicious mountain town with an incredibly seedy underside as her backdrop, I believe Ms. McHugh accomplished exactly and outstandingly what she intended. Blood versus Heart. Two female protagonists related to ambiguous, weak-spined male thread to villain (one by blood, one by marriage), playing with the variations in between, including the exploitation of young females.

The main characters are pretty well developed, but the story and the structure win the day here.

I'd say 4.5 stars, but I'll give it 5 because I didn't want to stop listening before I finished and I was sorry that it ended.

The narrators were all top notch.

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6 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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No Gillian Flynn

I've seen comparisons between this book and those written by Gillian Flynn. In my estimation there is simply no comparison. Except the references to Missouri. It was OK, but the story was not tight,and some characters seemed to dissolve from the narrative with no resolution. If someone really wants to get a sense of sourthern Missouri and the culture of the Ozarks they should read Daniel Woodrell. There is no one who captures it better.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Just WOW.......

I tried to come up with an eyecatching headline but this book has so much it wouldn't fit. First the story, intense and thrilling, it gave me palpitations. Second, the writing, beautiful, descriptive and melodic, I can picture every tree, clapboard on the old houses, gardens and dark areas that I won't give away. Lastly, the narration, primarily told by mother and daughter, I didn't realize this until midway through part one. I already love Sofia Willingham and the others did a great job too. This is the first book in a long time I wanted to relisten to immediately upon finishing it. I highly recommend.

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4 people found this helpful