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 … 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.
Praise for The Weight of Blood
“[An] expertly crafted thriller.”—Entertainment Weekly, “The Must List”
“Haunting . . . [a] riveting debut.”—Los Angeles Times
“Laura McHugh’s atmospheric debut . . . conjures a menacingly beautiful Ozark setting and a nest of poisonous family secrets reminiscent of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone.”—Vogue
“Fantastic . . . a mile-a-minute thriller.”—The Dallas Morning News
more
A highly accomplished debut — published in 2014, but I’m just discovering the author. As the story opens, Lucy is a 17 year old high school student in a small town in the Missouri Ozarks, determined to find out what happened to her friend Cheri, who disappeared a year ago and has just been found, dead. It’s the kind of community where some people are considered throw-aways, worth less than others, and Cheri is one — so people tell Lucy to leave it be. But she won’t, of course, even when the mystery looks like it might touch her uncle and her widowed father. Especially when she begins to suspect that following the clues might also help her find out what happened to her mother, Lila, who left when Lucy was a baby.
McHugh deftly handles the POV and time shifts first between Lucy, Lila, and other characters, several of whom appear in both the contemporary storyline and the historical storyline, set 18 years earlier when Lila came to town. I particularly liked Lucy, her friend Daniel, and the elderly neighbor, Birdie, who cared for Lila like a daughter and Lucy like a granddaughter. The story does involve human trafficking, which may be tough for some readers, but it’s handled well, with the victims nicely humanized. Lovely evocations of the power of home, and “the hills that call you back.”
This one had a mounting sense of dread that was deliciously captivating! Take the time to find it and read it. McHugh’s other book, Arrowood is another great one, but I’d start with Weight Of Blood.
Life in the small Ozark Mountain town of Henbane is about family, community and secrets. Lucy Dane lives in the shadow of her mother, a beautiful stranger who wasn’t from Henbane, but somehow managed to captivate everyone… until she disappeared.
When Lucy’s friend Cheri is murdered, Lucy is caught in a mystery of both her friend’s tragic death and her mother’s disappearance. Are the two related? With the weight of Henbane’s secrets surrounding her, Lucy must find out.
Told from the points of view of Lucy and her mother, The Weight of Blood is a dark story of a closed community that will always look out for its own. Outsiders will always be suspicious and help is dependent on who you know and who owes you something. Laura McHugh’s novel has a deep gothic feel and reminded me of the dark and twisted film Winter’s Bone. A really one-of-a-kind story that stayed with me long after I finished it.
Laura McHugh nails the way secrets can fester in a small community in this page-turner. Characters that practically walk off the page will draw you in, and the story will keep you reading until McHugh is ready to let you go.
Intense and captivating!
It’s been months since I got my hands on a novel that I rated 4 or 5 stars, and when I began The Weight of Blood, I thought “Oh boy! This is gonna be amazing!” and checked the name of the author again, thinking I may have found one I’ll follow. Sometimes you find an author who stands out, whose works you devour–more because of their craft than the actual story. Laura McHugh is not in that category, yet, but she has the potential. The first chapter of The Weight of Blood is wonderfully written. The setting is vivid, the mood is dark and uncomfortable with the introduction of the crime. Characters are introduced and bared unapologetically. She does a beautiful job of making Henbane a place where time is not quite caught up to the rest of the world, a back-in-the-holler area where people might be living in the 2010s, or the 1890s, because the mentality of the residents hasn’t changed that much. They tend to close ranks and keep the world and its changes at bay.
As other reviews mention, the chapters alternate between Lucy in the present, and Lila in the past.
Lucy introduces us to most of the characters and the entire plot in that first chapter, and hooks the reader entirely. So what happened? After the first chapter, it just felt a little…less. The story was good. But I feel like the author just got swept away by her own story. She began telling it, rather than making me feel it, as I did in Chapter One. Little things went awry, such as introducing chapters by other characters later in the book. These chapters didn’t feel like slipping into a new and different skin, just a continuation of the narration. Maybe if all non Lucy/Lila chapters had just been titled “Henbane” it would’ve felt ok, but even so, NO chapter should come from the villain’s point of view, not in this story of victims. Another thing that started to nag at me is Lucy’s age. She alternately came across as either seventeen or twelve, and maybe that was the author’s point, especially since she was motherless and backwoods, but if so, it wasn’t nuanced enough. It didn’t give me the “poor little girl” behind in certain areas of development, but instead felt like a mistake, like McHugh forgot what seventeen and twelve felt like. And sometimes Lucy and Lila felt too similar, like they lost their own voices and just became McHugh’s.
BUT, all those things aside, that first chapter! Laura McHugh can really write. The story was really good, and I put her other novels on my want-to-read list.
A tragic family story that whips you back and forth in time yet always moves you forward. Excellent.
Literary suspense in the Ozarks. Right in my sweet spot.
Very original format and story. Loved it
The characters weren’t well defined and the pace was slow.
This was a great book with great characters and an unpredictable storyline. I really enjoyed it and recommended it to my book club.
I enjoyed this book so much I bought her latest mystery and am reading it. It kept my interest til the end. I will say the ending wasn’t equal to the rest of the book, but I did enjoy it.
Even though you can figure out who the likely bad guy is, the two main characters are gutsy and following the threads that link the characters kept me intrigued, and wanting to know how and why even more than who. Also love the family – both blood and built.
Creepy. Don’t get lost on the back roads of Arkansas.
This book was so well written I felt I was right there with the characters without them knowing it. What a great read.
I really liked this book, the ending was a little abrupt, but it kept me interested.
I am now a fan of Laura McHugh’s books…this was the first one that I read and I immediately purchased and read her second book!
I would highly recommend reading this book!