From award-winning and highly acclaimed author Court Stevens comes a heart-wrenching story of small towns, rumors, and thirteen missing boys.The Gemini Thief could be anyone.Your father, your mother, your best friend’s crazy uncle.Some country music star’s deranged sister. Anyone.Someone is stealing Tennessee’s boys.Report suspicious behavior.The Gemini Thief is a serial kidnapper, who takes … Anyone.Someone is stealing Tennessee’s boys.Report suspicious behavior.The Gemini Thief is a serial kidnapper, who takes three boys and holds them captive from June 1st to June 30th of the following year. The June Boys endure thirteen months of being stolen, hidden, observed, and fed before they are released, unharmed, by their masked captor. The Thief is a pro, having eluded authorities for nearly a decade and taken at least twelve boys.
Now Thea Delacroix has reason to believe the Gemini Thief took a thirteenth victim: her cousin, Aulus McClaghen.
But the game changes when one of the kidnapped boys turns up dead. Together with her boyfriend Nick and her best friends, Thea is determined to find the Gemini Thief and the remaining boys before it’s too late. Only she’s beginning to wonder something sinister, something repulsive, something unbelievable, and yet, not impossible:
What if her father is the Gemini Thief?
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This was an amazing read. I am so grateful to Goodreads, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. It took me awhile, due to illness, but once I started I read it through in a day. The review is going to be short. This is because I’m terrified I’ll give something away and I absolutely don’t want to ruin this for anyone reading this. I went through so many emotions reading this. I hope you do, too. I wrote down quotes I want to remember, ones I want to think about, ones I want to explore how and why they appeal so much to me. My favorite one is, “Crying heals soul wounds that medicine can’t touch.”
The book touched me. Thea, Nick, Gladys, Tank and Aulus will remain with me. So will the Welder and thinking about the why.
If you are reading, you have an interest in the book. Get it. Read it. Now.
*I won this book in a giveaway. My review is voluntary and based on my feelings and thoughts while reading it.*
What do you do if you think your father is a kidnapper and murderer? Wow, this book was interesting and kept me riveted. The ending was terrific. The author also has many wonderful turns of phrase or expressions that made me smile or nod my head in appreciation. This is my favorite of her books so far. I did listen to the audiobook. There is a great interview between the author and Ruta Sepetys at the end that was a nice treat.
Highly recommend.
A stealer of boys
Thea lives in the small town of Wildwood, Kentucky in 2010. For the last ten years a kidnapper called the Gemini Thief has been taking boys from Tennessee on June 1st. They are held in an underground bunker, unharmed, and released the following year on June 30th. This year is a little different. Thea’s cousin, Aulus, has disappeared and she’s sure that the Gemini Thief has taken him. Not everyone agrees since he is from Kentucky and all the other boys have been from Tennessee. And to make matters worse, for the first time, one of the boys is found dead.
This was a great suspense thriller with everyone suspecting everyone else as to who the Gemini Thief could be. Feelings of anger and frustration are high.
Thea and her closest friends are caught in the middle of small town intrigue as time passes and the kidnapper and the boys aren’t found. Plus Thea has to deal with her father and his obsessions.
My only issue, like other reviewers, is the formatting. I know, that as a book reviewer, when I receive an Advanced Reading Copy that it’s not the final book. We are supposed to overlook typos, etc. and base our reviews on the story – which I did. But there are many places in the book where handwritten notes are to appear and the formatting is totally off, making the text difficult to read and understand. I am sure this will be fixed before the book is released to the public and it’s definitely a story worth reading.
I received this book from Thomas Nelson through Edelweiss in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
‘“Careful with that hope,” he said.
“Careful with that doubt,” I retorted.’
I was worried about this one after reading reviews, but I actually ended up enjoying The June Boys. The story is like a darker Nancy Drew. A large cast of characters with a few main ones. One being a victim whose POV is shown mostly through letters, and the other being the one trying to solve the Gemini kidnapping whodunit. The start is a bit of an info dump, and the middle is a bit of a drag, but the last third of the book is entertaining and it outweighs any of the negatives for me. It’s real life scary and emotional and I loved that. While I do agree with other reviewers of the ebook copy, the formatting was quite a bit distracting. I think certain parts of this story were confusing and less impactful because you’re distracted by images of paper. I’d love to see what these notes actually look like in the final book, because I think they will be a cool addition and have the intended effect!
“Monsters don’t always look like monsters on the outside, and maybe they’re not always monsters,…“
If you’re looking for a YA thriller that’s like a Nancy Drew and Criminal Minds love child, then I highly recommend this story.