Real Bad Things

By Kelly J. Ford,

Book cover of Real Bad Things

Book description

From the author of Cottonmouths, a Los Angeles Review Best Book of 2017, comes an evocative suspense about the cost of keeping secrets and the dangers of coming home.

Beneath the roiling waters of the Arkansas River lie dead men and buried secrets.

When Jane Mooney's violent stepfather, Warren, disappeared,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Real Bad Things as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

It’s hard to go home again after you’ve lived outside the state for several years, but coming home knowing everyone thinks you’ve killed a man after his body turns up? Well, that’s a great way to open a book, and it just gets better.

Kelly Ford always paints a nuanced picture of Arkansas, juxtaposing the region’s beauty and potential with the poverty and reality of actually growing up there. The relationship between Janie and her high school love interest, Gloria, builds beautifully with a plot twist I didn’t see coming.

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