Kim Loomis is a social media star, homemaker and mortician. With her husband Norman, they’ve been bringing in a dark harvest. But death is an infrequent visitor to a small town, and when they struggle to meet demand, Kim decides there is a profitable alternative. Except Norman doesn’t want any part of his wife’s horrific plans. He wants to leave Kim, but no one leaves America’s homemaker.It was … homemaker.
It was plain sailing for assassin Melody Morgan until she executes a drug cartel’s bagman. Hunted by highly efficient killers, Melody is forced to accept a job from Kim. But not everything is as it seems. Kim is hiding something, a secret so terrifying there may be no way out for anyone.
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First off, thank you Bookish for the opportunity to read this ebook.
Secondly, do not get thrown by the opening chapter which describes 4 women sitting around a table discussing how to make a home a home! It’s not all homemaking tips! BTW, this takes place in Montpelier, Vermont.
This is the story of not one, but two female serial killers. One is the “lead” homemaker providing the guidance to the other homemakers. She is also a mortician with her husband in one of the town’s funeral homes. She ends up getting involved in black market organ harvesting. The other serial killer runs a “cleaning” business and unknowingly kills a cartel guy.
The killings are pretty gruesome so don’t read if you get queasy. It’s an easy read and keeps you engaged.
Desperate Housewives meets American Horror Story!
Kim Loomis: American homemaker, social media star, and mortician (alongside her husband, Norman). Unfortunately for Kim, people in her small town just aren’t dying quickly enough, so she needs to get…creative.
Melody Morgan: Contract killer on the brink of retirement, or so she thinks. She mistakenly kills a cartel’s money man (oops) and is dealing with the fallout.
These are very broad strokes, so as not to spoil anything. There’s SO much more going on throughout the story. The other members of the Homemakers Association of Vermont (Brooke, Paige, and Megan) all have their own…issues, let’s call them. Are any of these women particularly likable? No, not at all, but for me at least, that didn’t take away from the story.
I got an absolute kick out of this book!
(Side note: This may be because I’ve been watching Why Women Kill (CBS All Access) – although there is WAY more killing happening in this book than on that show. Also, if you’re not watching it, why not?)
Fun, smart, and sharply written, American Homemaker has definitely earned its place among my favorite books of the year.
Thank you to the author and BookishFirst for the free copy!
Wow, this book was so amazing. It would make the best scary movie. It was so dark. Talk about some messed up people in the world. The author is so gifted at bringing building a world and twisted characters. He really brought feelings out in me as I read. And I love the cover. I kept wanting it to have some supernatural creature in it, but I guess humans who are psychopaths are more scary than vampires and the like. I’m surprised all the killings went on for as long as they did without questions or discovery. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about is how it sort of ended on a cliffhanger. I’m hoping this means another book? Please. There were characters you love to hate and ones you will root for. Can’t wait to read more by this author.
Kim Loomis is a psychopath. On the exterior she is poised and wholesome. She makes it her mission to elevate American Homemakers everywhere. She holds meetings at her home for a select few, where she presides over topics of discussion such as the best way to clean your bathtub beneath a mammoth gilt-framed portrait of Martha Stewart, wearing her best designer dresses. But Kim is dark and terrible. She has secrets that would make the rest of us run in terror, but to Kim, she’s just doing what needs to be done to maintain the lifestyle she wants to live.
My biggest problem with the story was that the blurb seems to imply that the story is primarily going to be a showdown between contract killer Melody, and Kim Loomis. If this had been the focus of the story, Melody accepting a job then starting to doubt Kim, then the two of them playing cat-and-mouse as Melody discovers Kim’s horrible truth, I think this could have been a much better story. Unfortunately, Kim and Melody do not even cross paths until probably 90% of the way through the book. I liked Melody, and it would have been exciting to see Melody going off the deep end after finding out she’d been duped by Kim and ultimately seeking redemption prior to her retirement by taking Kim down. There was just so much more that could have happened here. But it didn’t.
It is fast-paced, it is certainly a thriller and a page-turner. The characters are quite well-written, from the psychos to the side characters. Kaine definitely has a gift for writing. But if you’re expecting to see your typical easy-going killer-for-hire go rogue or the bad guys meeting even badder guys and cleaning house, it’s just not that kind of story. I was surprised at how many people died with no ramifications.
Usually I’m all for a dark book from time to time, but I enjoy my dark tales with splashes of wit and dark humor. There’s no humor here. Just dark. And gory. There aren’t really any fabulous plot twists either. Just a straightforward who’s-going-to-make-it-out-alive horror story. (And the answer is, um, not many)
If you like a fast-paced horror read, you’ll love it. There’s quite a bit of gore as far as descriptions of people meeting their doom, some language, and some implied sexual content but nothing descriptive.
It does end with quite the cliffhanger, not sure if there will be another book or if you’re just left to wonder.
I did not like this book at all. Right from the beginning. I couldn’t stand just about any character. The main character, Kim, was probably the closest one I came to not rolling my eyes as much. Her husband I disliked immensely. I wasn’t buying Melody as an assassin for hire. Not even a little bit.
The plot is there. The twists are there. It has the makings of a good thriller but i just couldn’t fall into the story. There were some parts that did give me some hope that maybe it was going to get better for me and I wasn’t just forcing my way through the book but sadly that hope died away. Honestly, If i hadn’t won the book in exchanged for a review and had purchased the book on my own…I wouldn’t have continued reading it and just counted it as a loss.