At a Glance

Title: Long Bright River

Author: Liz Moore

Published: January 7th, 2020 by Riverhead Books

Page: 496

Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

Goodreads Rating: 4.29 out of 5

My Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis

“Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn’t be more different.
Then one of them goes missing.

In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.

Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey’s district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit–and her sister–before it’s too late.

Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters’ childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.”

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Lets Read Rant Repeat Book Club Pick

Bookstagram is such a wonderful community and I have met quite a few folks that I now consider to be friends. One of these is Jordan from @readwithwine and together we host a Virtual Book Club @letsreadrantrepeat. Our aim is to read a variety of genres, constantly switching it up to ensure we are reading something everyone will enjoy. Each month we choose 1 book that can be practically any type of story. We host a group chat with fellow book lovers on Instagram, where we can talk about the book as we read. At the end of the month (a specified Sunday at 7pm CST) Jordan and I get together for wine & an Instagram Live discussion. We generally invite guests from our group chat to share their thoughts on the book as well!

Our February Book Club Discussion will be held on Sunday February 16th at 7pm CST. Head to our Instagram @letsreadrantrepeat to join in the discussion.

My Thoughts

I loved a good crime book. Crime shows are my favorite as are police procedural such as SVU. Books are no different and this one really came through for me. On top of this being a crime story, it’s also a family drama in particular a story of the resilience of the bound between sisters.

Both Kacey and Mickey grew up poor and lacking love. Mickey is socially awkward and introverted. Kacey is extroverted and the life of the party. They’re completely different and have thus learned to coop with their rough childhoods in very different ways. Mickey is a beat cop who keeps an eye on the working girls especially on her sister Kacey, who’s drug addiction has lead her down some dark roads.

When working girls in the neighborhood start to get murdered and Kacey goes missing, Mickey will stop at nothing to ensure her sister does not wind up murdered, even if they are not on the best of terms.

This is a brilliant story with just the right amount of suspense to really hold the readers attention. Both Mickey and Kacey have more than enough reasons to hate each other, but their bond as sisters proves to be greater than any either could imagine. As Mickey searches for her sister, she begins to unravel things in her own path that have been buried for much to long.

The alternating timeline Moore weaves is excellent and really keeps the story interesting. It also does a great job of creating a more mysterious vibe while also throwing just the right number of twists to keep you guessing on whodunnit. I also really enjoyed that this book shines a light on the struggles of drug addicts, not just for the addicts themselves but also for their families. With the opioid crisis reaching a peak in the United States, and from having family members with these experience I think educating on this topic is extremely important. Moore does a brilliant job of painting the effects of the crisis. This books is amazing and I think everyone should read it.

Also you should check out USA Facts for more information around the crisis and stats HERE!

My biggest negative for this book, is that I sort of hate Mickey. She’s robotic and lacks any sort of confidence in herself. However, this could definitely be because of her background and I cannot picture her being any different. I just wanted to shake her occasionally and tell her to just say what she’s thinking to people. She spends way to much of her time not telling people things which of course makes the situation worse.

This book was amazing though. This is a ★★★★★ read for me. My third for the month of February, which is unheard of.

This book is out now! If you think you’d like to read this book, get your copy HERE!

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Long Bright River. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof_books.  

About the Author

Liz Moore is a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction.
Her first novel, The Words of Every Song (Broadway Books, 2007), centers on a fictional record company in New York City just after the turn of the millennium. It draws partly on Liz’s own experiences as a musician. It was selected for Borders’ Original Voices program and was given a starred review by Kirkus. Roddy Doyle wrote of it, “This is a remarkable novel, elegant, wise, and beautifully constructed. I loved the book.”

After the publication of her debut novel, Liz obtained her MFA in Fiction from Hunter College. In 2009, she was awarded the University of Pennsylvania’s ArtsEdge residency and moved to Philadelphia.

Her second novel, Heft, was published by W.W. Norton in January 2012 to popular and critical acclaim. Of Heft, The New Yorker wrote, “Moore’s characters are lovingly drawn…a truly original voice”; The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “Few novelists of recent memory have put our bleak isolation into words as clearly as Liz Moore does in her new novel”; and editor Sara Nelson wrote in O, The Oprah Magazine, “Beautiful…Stunningly sad and heroically hopeful.” The novel was published in five countries, was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and was included on several “Best of 2012” lists, including those of NPR and the Apple iBookstore.

Moore’s short fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in venues such as Tin House, The New York Times, and Narrative Magazine. She is the winner of the Medici Book Club Prize and Philadelphia’s Athenaeum Literary Award. After winning a 2014 Rome Prize in Literature, she spent 2014-15 at the American Academy in Rome, completing her third novel.

That novel, The Unseen World, was published by W.W. Norton in July of 2016. Louisa Hall called it “fiercely intelligent” in her review in The New York Times; Susan Coll called it “enthralling . . . ethereal and elegant . . . a rich and convincing period piece” in her review in the Washington Post. The Unseen World was included in “Best of 2016” lists by The New Yorker, the BBC, Publishers Weekly, Vox, Google Play, and Audible.com, among others.

Moore’s fourth novel, Long Bright River, is forthcoming from Riverhead Books in January 2020.

She lives with her family in Philadelphia and is a faculty member of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Temple University.