Title: Father’s House
Author: C. Edward Baldwin
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Storycartel in exchange for an honest review.
Fathers House is a home for wayward boys. Its proprietor, Mayo Fathers has made it his life work to be father to the many boys who don’t have one. Many of the boys grow up to become valuable contributors to society, including Duraleigh’s assistant district attorney, Ben Lovison.
Ben moved to Fathers House at the age of thirteen, shortly after the brutal murder of his mother in broad daylight in front of their home. It was Mayo Fathers who encouraged Ben to finish school, attend college and law school. Uncle Mayo (as he liked his boys to call him), was also instrumental in getting Ben his job with the district attorney’s office. But eight years later after the salvage, fatal beating of one of the city’s teenagers, Ben soon learns that Fathers House has a dark side and a seedy connection with the city of Duraleigh. He also discovers that Fathers House was involved in the death of his mother and the disappearance of the father that he never met.
Fathers House is about fathers and sons. It’s a cautionary tale for fathers who are present in their sons’ lives and especially for those who are not. If you’re not raising your son, someone or something will.
I have to admit, the thing that lured me in about Fathers House was the cover. Once I started reading, I felt ‘meh’. The story offered a lot of different characters, and I couldn’t really grasp them, or even keep them apart. There was Mayo Fathers, owner of Fathers House. There was Ben, his family, and a whole bunch of other characters passing the revenue. Each chapter seemed to introduce us to a whole new cast of characters. By chapter five, I was ready to quit.
But then, the story came together. Dots connected in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Twists and turns meandered into one big whole, a story so complicated it feels like a Sherlock Holmes book. Except bloodier.
There’s death upon death, mystery behind mystery, a criminal organization, an evil mastermind of sorts, the wickedness of people in general, and tons more. When a murder happens at Fathers House, Ben is forced to go back to the house he grew up in, along with several other boys. But when Ben goes back, he starts to unroot dark secrets better left buried, that change his perspective of Fathers House forever…
With a healthy dose of suspense, mystery and nail-biting cliffhangers, Fathers House kept me to the edge of my seat.
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