Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose

 

I LOVE the premise of this book, and a lot of people say the cover alone should earn it 2 stars, which I totally agree with. I'm not a big fan of having multiple POVs (this has 4), but I loved this book overall.

The book starts with Laura Thomas on her deathbed from cancer. Her oldest daughter, Beth is by her side. Laura tells Beth that her missing father, Brian, didn't actually disappear 7 years earlier. She also says "don't trust..." but she never finished her sentence. Uh... Why didn't you say something earlier? Did you have to wait till last second of your life to tell us such a major secret?? I mean, C'MON!

So we learn about Laura's 3 kids. Besides Beth the oldest, we also have Nicole, a drug addict, and Michael, a successful tech executive. Michael is the most successful one of the bunch, and he thinks his other siblings are losers, for staying in the small town of Allen's Grove.

Now all three kids are back home dealing with what's happened. Nicole gets assaulted and is sent to the hospital. Beth isn't overly surprised due to the fact Nicole is a druggie and she's relapsed again due to the trauma of losing her mom. Next day, Laura's estate lawyer Craig Davidson shows up and tells the kids that most of Laura's stuff goes to Beth, like the house and the furniture, also a silver key and a post-it note. The post-it note tells you where the lockbox is. Michael gets all of their father's belongings, except for each daughter getting to choose two items. Next, the lawyer handed a sealed envelope to each child and told them they are to be opened after the funeral. The envelopes have their mother Laura's handwriting on them.

The children start going through the attic of their mom's stuff. They find some old home video VHS tapes with dates on them. The kids decide to play them. One is from 1999. On it, they find some weird stuff. Laura seems to be unaware that the tape was rolling, when she found her husband Brian at the body of a 12 year old girl, Emma Harper. The 3 kids know Emma well - she's a neighbor and a friend that went missing in 1999. Beth used to date Emma's brother, Lucas. Lucas's parents never recovered from the loss of their daughter. Lucas's father died years ago and his mom now has dementia. So now I'm thinking Brian killed Emma and ran away to not be caught. But it feels like that's where the author wants you to go, so that's probably not it.

The kids are obviously a little shaken with this information and unsure what to do. They decide to read their mother's journal to see if they can learn more. When their father left, he had left them a note that said "Laura, I'm sorry. Love, Brian". So it appeared to be a planned departure. The police called off the search when they located his car at the Mexico border. However, Beth and Nicole never gave up looking for him. In fact, it was during one of these searches that Nicole got in a car accident and got hooked on painkillers that started her drug addiction. Beth never recovered from her father walking out on her either, as it ruined her marriage, and her relationship with her daughter, Marissa. OK, now I can kind of understand what the brother Michael is yapping about. These sisters need to get a grip and move on. 

So from their mother's journal, the kids learn that Emma somehow died and for some reason, Brian (with Laura's help) covered up the death and buried her body. Hmm... so obviously Brian is implicated in Emma's death. If it was just an accidental death, would he still cover it up? Maybe. Since he's friends with Emma's family and all. The plot thickens!

Beth and Lucas are rekindling their relationship a little since he's planning on coming to the funeral. They talk about Emma and Lucas tells Beth he doesn't even want to know what happened at this point. Sometimes it's just better not knowing. Beth tells Lucas that she still emails her father every week, even though she's never gotten a response. Dude, it's been 23 years. I know we don't want to just forget about our loved ones, but it's probably time to like, write those emails less frequently...

Nicole is secretly working with a detective, Casey Dunn, who is a former classmate, and she wants to write a book about the disappearance. She's always wanted to be a writer, so, good for her. Nicole can't drive around due to her broken arm from the assault, so Beth drives her around. When they get home, they realize the house has been broken into, but nothing seems to be missing. Beth realizes she has an email from her father!!!! Her father tells her that he's sorry Laura passed, and not to look for him, and that he's sorry he's not a better father, grandfather, husband. 

They go through more journal entries and videotapes. In one of the videotapes, Beth notices that her mother seems very different than before while filming Michael. Nicole discovers a newspaper clipping of a missing person article from 1999, that of 17 year old Christie Roberts. Christie was in an earlier home video where she was trying to be friends with Beth and Beth brushed her off. The police believed Christie had ran away due to a bad home life. Hmm... this must all tie together somehow...

Next journal entry, Laura talks about the missing person case of Christie Roberts and says she thinks Brian is involved. Around this time the neighbor Charles Gallagher got arrested for killing Emma Harper. He confessed after a long and intense questioning. There is a newspaper clipping about Charles's arrest and it says he was arrested based on an anonymous tip and some circumstantial evidence. The next journal entry tells us that Laura had planted the evidence of the bicycle to help exonerate Charles and have him released. Not too long after his release, he went missing.

Another journal entry, Laura talks about finding Brian in the shower in the middle of the night, and bloody clothes in a pile. Brian tells her the blood isn't his and she shouldn't have left the bicycle. She tells him that she can't let an innocent man be convicted. He tells her she doesn't have to worry about that any more because Charles is dead. GASP!!!

Lucas and Beth are now an item. Lucas tells her they broke up in high school because of his father's suicide. His father had left a note that tells them he had done something terrible. The public didn't know that part of the story. Lucas and his mom assumed Eddie had done something to Emma and that's why he killed himself. Beth decides to play the video that shows Eddie had nothing to do with it. But that part has been magically erased!! Lucas feels played by Beth and storms out. OK, so that means whoever broke into the house wasn't going after money. They erased the tape. But why would anyone do that? Maybe Brian came back and erased it? Laura had tried to say not to trust him, right?

Beth is distraught at this point, for losing Lucas. Next journal, Laura says she talked to Brian and Brian told her Eddie killed Charles because he believed Charles was responsible for Emma's disappearance. Brian helped burying Charles's body because he didn't want to see his friend go to jail. Lordy. Now Laura is mad at Brian because she tells him that if it wasn't for his "anonymous tip", Charles wouldn't have been arrested and this wouldn't have happened. She demands to know the truth. Brian tells her. She doesn't say in the journal what happened but she says she feels like she can't blame him, because she would have done the same thing. Hmm... 

The funeral is over. Nicole decides to open her envelope. It says, "You're not the child I wanted, but you're the one I deserved. -- Regretfully, your mother". Damn. That's harsh. I don't think I would write that to my daughter no matter how much of a druggie she is.

Beth decides she's going to find Emma's grave, because it's got to be on the property somewhere. She eventually finds six graves. Most of them belong to dogs or cats they had as pets. But she notices 3 have names of pets she have no memories of. They are named Butterfly, Garfield, and Goofy. She starts with Butterfly and finds a body. THREE GRAVES??? WTH??? So I'm thinking it's Emma and Charles, but who's in the THIRD GRAVE???

Nicole in the meanwhile, wants to do drugs, after reading the letter she got from her mom. Can you blame her? Sheesh. She took Beth's silver key and she wants to go see what Beth is getting from her mom. It could be something good, then she can use it to buy drugs. She goes to the bank for the safety deposit box. She doesn't have the proper ID to prove ownership obviously, but the banker sympathizes her and believed her lies when she said she is Beth. In the safety deposit box, she finds some of Emma's items, and a receipt for a $5000 money order signed by Brian. Next, Nicole opens Beth's letter and finds all of Laura's confessions. This chapter ends here?! Are you kidding me?? Now I have to keep reading!!

So Beth keeps digging. First grave is Emma. Second grave is Charles. Third grave is... her father BRIAN!!! WHAT A TWIST? Did you see that coming? I didn't. At least it wasn't one of my top theories. I was thinking Eddie or Christie maybe. This chapter ends in another cliffhanger, as we are told Beth hears someone calling her name and she's thinking about her mom's parting words, "Don't trust...".

Now Nicole has read all of the confessions from her mom. She calls the cops and tells them to come to their house and tells them where to find the bodies. Beth sees Lucas at the gravesite. Oh no. Does that mean Lucas killed Emma and is now going to kill Beth? Is that why Lucas got so mad when Beth tried to show him the video of the day Emma died? Lucas says he's there to apologize for storming out the other day. But not so fast. Lucas is hit in the head with a shovel by.... MICHAEL! Lucas goes down like a brick. Michael tells Beth she shouldn't have been digging, then he pulls a gun on Beth and asks her where is Nicole. Michael also admits that he switched the envelope with Nicole. Aha!! That makes so much more sense now. So Michael is the degenerative. He tells Beth that Laura had much nicer things to say to Beth than to Michael.

Michael says Emma's death was an accident. They were playing on a highway bridge, he scared her unexpectedly, she fell off the bridge and died. He showed his dad the body, and his dad helped him cover up the death. Then why is Brian dead? Michael claims that's another accident. 7 years ago, when Michael's girlfriend died, he went home to recover the loss. His dad didn't believe Michael wasn't involved, and went off on him. Michael claims Brian started choking him and Michael had to act in self defense and killed Brian. Laura helped Michael bury the body once again. Michael also admits to sending the email as dad to Beth, and erasing the videotape. Michael and Beth fight for the gun. Nicole pulls up, and police shows up too. The gun goes off.

The cops had shot Michael and now Michael is recovering in the hospital. Nicole turns in the envelope of Laura's confession. The police exhumes all the bodies and will start an official investigation. The sisters deduce that Brian must have known Emma's death wasn't an accident or he would have gone to the authorities. This was proven to be true when the weird girl Christie shows up months later with pictures proving what happened was no accident - Michael had pushed Emma. Christie was seen as weird because she always liked to carry her camera around town, taking pictures of everything. Christie wasn't interested in turning anyone in - she wanted money to get out of town and escape from her family. Brian paid her the $5000 blackmail she demanded. 

Turns out, the reason why Michael got more attention growing up (something the other two sisters always noticed but wondered if it was just in their heads) is because after Emma's death, they thought they could fix Michael by doting on him and giving him more attention. But after Brian's death, Laura is done with Michael. Laura helped him cover up the killing, and told Michael to drive Brian's car to the Mexico border, and she wants nothing more to do with him. Laura used an old note from Brian from an unrelated time to show the authorities that he simply walked away.

3 years later, Beth is now married to Lucas and has adopted a little boy. Her relationship with Marissa is better now too. Nicole's book is a bestseller. The book is called Home Is Where the Bodies Are.