Fresh from a stretch in prison, Joe Openshaw is living at home with his father and trying to get his life together again. He has let go of old habits, especially the ones that turned him into an addict and helped land him in prison.On a hike along the Lowback Trail, Joe stumbles on one of the town’s oldest secrets—buried long ago, if not forgotten.It’s an unusual but safe enough treasure—a jar of … unusual but safe enough treasure—a jar of old pennies. What interests Joe isn’t the pennies themselves, but the pieces of paper taped to every coin—a child’s handwritten wish on each one.
When the first few wishes come true, they are simple things. Fun. Harmless.
Except as time goes on, Joe realizes they aren’t really wishes at all…they’re exchanges, and the bill was racking up.
Nothing is free in life.
Sooner or later, you always pay.
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I’ve been talking about and praising this book for a while. Two great authors who made something amazing together. This is a story you are captured in and you can feel the texture of the world even when they aren’t describing it directly. I’m on board for the ride. More people should know about this one.
Fresh out of prison, Joe Openshaw is hiking the Lowback Trail when he discovers a glass jar filled with pennies taped to scraps of folded paper. Curious, he opens one scrap and finds a young girl’s handwriting and a wish for a bike. It’s not just mere coincidence when his friend Kenny gives him a stolen bike to fence a short time later, and Joe sees a few other wishes come true. As a recovering addict, though, Joe knows nothing comes free, that there’s always a hook. Nothing is as simple as a wish granted, no string attached. There’s a cost, and the debt is starting to pile up…soon enough, it’s got to be collected.
Robert Ford and Matt Hayward have crafted a compulsively readable work of horror crime fiction. A Penny For Your Thoughts has a killer premise, and it’s populated with a ton of rich characters. Joe is a highly sympathetic and deeply flawed protagonist, with his background as an addict and unwitting getaway driver for a store robbery that landed him and his girlfriend in prison. His relationship with his father is rich and relateable, and the authors do a wonderful job of exploring the burgeoning friendship that arises between Joe, Kenny, and newcomer Ava.
Ford and Hayward also do a wonderful job of introducing their concept, exploring the curiosity and initial light-hardheartedness of it before plunging the story and its characters into darkness. There’s a great sequence early on when one character reads a young girl’s wish to hilarious results, but as Joe, Kenny, and Ava dig deeper into the nature of these wishes and their penny payments things get progressively darker. The innocuous wishes written by a young girl decades earlier take some horrific turns, and soon enough Joe is forced into the position of keeping this jar safe from others who would deliberately seek to use these magical pennies for devious ends.
My only criticism of A Penny For Your Thoughts is actually less a criticism and more of a desire for more. The Crimson Sisters are a mysterious group, one that sticks to the shadows, but what we get to know of them is pretty tantalizing stuff. I had really hoped for more involvement on their end, and the authors promised greater depths to their purpose with minor dashes of cosmic horror. With nods toward Elder Gods, and even Brian Keene’s Ob from The Rising, I had hoped for some deeper involvement of ancient beings. Unfortunately, the potential for the Crimson Sisters are not fully realized, and are, at a crucial moment, reduced to little more than a deus ex machina. The nature of the Crimson Sisters, though, is highly intriguing and I really wanted to spend more time with them, for Joe to learn more about their practices and peel back some of their mysteries. I wanted to know way more about them than the story or the authors could commit to. I wanted them to become a more prominent and overt force in the story, but Ford and Hayward keep things teasingly subtle.
Despite wanting more out of the Crimson Sisters, everything else about A Penny For Your Thoughts worked really, really well, and Ford and Hayward work with the synchrony of a well-oiled machine. Their collaboration here is awfully smooth, and it’s clear these two spent a good amount of time ensuring their prose styles mesh and seamlessly disappear into one another. A Penny For Your Thoughts is a smooth, easy, engaging read, and if I had but one wish it’d be for more Ford and Hayward collaborations. Maybe on something exploring the Crimson Sisters further, if I might be so bold.
If you found a jar of pennies attached to wishes that would come true after you read them, would you be able to leave the jar alone?
A Penny For Your Thoughts by Robert Ford & Matt Hayward is a tale that centers around exactly that. It’s a tale that is filled with suspense and unease, a splash of violence, and a ton of heart.
The main character, Joe Openshaw, has recently gotten out of prison. While he’s determined to turn his life around, he can’t help but waver from time to time. And sometimes, the pull toward something he knows he shouldn’t be doing is just too strong…
The phrase “be careful what you wish for” is definitely at play here!
This tale totally sucked me in right from the first chapter. It has such wonderful pacing throughout that will keep you fully engaged and a writing style that flows easily from scene to scene. I loved that the style was both beautiful when it came to the heartwarming bits and some of the description, but then it was also jarring and harsh when it needed to be.
The main plot was so interesting! I loved how we slowly got deeper and deeper into the mix as the story progressed to see just how this little town was affected by the wishes. Just like the characters- even though I knew reading more wishes was a dangerous endeavor, I also had a ton of curiosity that had me hoping that they would read a few more.
I also absolutely loved each of the characters with all of their quirks and harebrained ideas, even if I wanted to scream at them through the pages!
My first time reading both of these talented authors and it won’t be my last!
A Penny for Your Thoughts is a beautifully crafted little novel with an emotionally charged depth. The characterisation is on point, and reminded me a lot of King’s early work.
The story evolves around a jar of old pennies complete with wishes, found by the protagonist, Joe, as he tries to rebuild his life after a stint in prison. But there is a price to pay for such wishes, and Joe quickly realises that there is nothing innocent about his discovery.
Relationships form the foundation to this story and I absolutely adored Joe’s bond with his father, and grew to despise his former girlfriend, Angie, as her actions dragged Joe further and further towards the edge.
I’ll leave you with simply this – if you want a book that will leave you wanting more, pick this one up, definitely one of my favourites of this year!