Little Monsters is a tender, engaging tale that sweeps you away to the idyllic Cape Cod during 2016 and into the lives of the Gardner family, especially siblings Ken and Abby, as the preparations for their father’s upcoming seventieth birthday party will have them finally confronting all the jealousy, resentment, pain, scars, long-buried secrets, and despicable behaviours that have tied them together since childhood. I loved LOVED the writing! Kara has this ability to make everything sound so poetic, despite the subject matter. I mean, she could probably make a grocery list sound like the next modern mystery. And the way she crafted the whole story is impressive, because she managed to hide everything in plain sight. I had NO clue what the hell was going on! I had to stop several times, with a big “WHAT EVEN” on my face. And everything is unravelled so artfully and, most of all, it makes sense. Once I got to the end, I wanted to slap myself, because “oh my gOD IT WAS THERE WHY DIDN’T I SEE IT”. Kacey has had a strained relationship with her volatile mother for years. When it becomes too much for her to handle, Kacey moves to Broken Falls, Wisconsin, to live with the father she has never met. From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets. But the next morning, Jade calls because Bailey never made it home from the party, and she wants Kacey's help to try and find her. The more Kacey tries to find out what happened to her friend, the more she starts to look like an object of suspicion herself. And the more truth she seeks, the deeper she finds herself mired in a web of secrets and lies that make her question those closest to her, and she starts to wonder whether ghost stories can actually be real.

Kacey was an interesting main character, who had been through a lot already in her young life. Now as she seemed to be settling into a more secure home environment, other aspects of her life seemed to be getting out of hand. Published and if you enjoy secrets, family dynamics and our authors love and familiarity for Cape Cod you may enjoy this!* Well, in this story we have three teenage friends: Kacey, Bailey and Jade. Kacey is new in town and is devastated to learn that Bailey has disappeared and is presumed dead by many of the people in the town she lives in, but worst of all is when Kacey starts being considered a suspect in the investigation. Cape Cod—its beauty and wildness—is a core piece of the novel’s fabric. What were some of your favorite descriptive lines evoking the landscape★ Would this book feel different if it was set in New York or California★As Adam’s thirty-something young adult children prepare for his birthday celebration, they are beginning to spin out in their own life crises. His daughter Abby and son Ken are too wrapped up in their own lives to notice the telltale signs in Adam’s changing behavior and the plot is in motion for a delicious and compelling family drama. Abby, an artist on the cusp of a career breakthrough, will unveil her masterpiece painting at Adam’s party. The work contains incendiary revelations of the past that all family members have buried deep, as well as blossoming news about the future. Ken is a successful businessman consumed with greed and values political advancement at the expense of his personal relationships. Unwittingly, his birthday gift to Adam will be in complete contradiction to his father’s wishes. And a deep brooding childhood secret between Abby and Ken that is inching its way to the surface will have explosive effects on all. Ken’s wife Jenny plays a central role as does Stephanie, a living and breathing surprise from Adam’s past who is visiting the Cape and is tiptoeing around the family, waiting for the right moment to introduce herself. Wrenching, psychologically complex, and emotionally satisfying, Little Monsters is an immersive pleasure. This sprawling, big-hearted family saga is about the lies we tell each other and ourselves that enable us to maintain alliances-and what happens when we start telling the truth Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Train That was when I decided that all the ghost stories got it wrong: evil isn’t a spirit or a monster or a ghost. It lives inside regular people, and it doesn’t know the difference between night and day. As the mystery of Bailey's disappearance intensifies, the towns people begin to turn on Kacey. There are rumors swirling around that indeed..she may have had a role in what happened to Bailey. The book begins with the impending retirement and 70th birthday of a famed oceanographer, Adam Gardner, coming to grips with the realization that at the end of the day, our relevance in the world is not what we believed it to be in youth. After the untimely death of his wife, he raised two children – Ken and Abby – by himself, and even though he was a remote father, both of them have displayed great promise in their fields. He also has a third child, Steph, of whom he is unaware. These are the primary narrators of this book.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Kara Thomas, and the publisher, Delacorte Press, for this opportunity. Overall, Little Monsters is a heartfelt, intricate, nuanced tale by Brodeur that reminds us that families are complicated and messy, the choices we make often have far-reaching consequences, and skeletons often find their way to the surface no matter how well they’re buried. This is a riveting tale of friendship, jealousy, obsession, fear, family, and the things that happen when no one is honest with their feelings and fears. I couldn't get enough of it. Kacey is concerned. Even though she enjoys some quiet time, FOMO is real. The next day, Kacey receives the news that Bailey is missing. She just disappeared, gone in the night. Did she run off, was she taken, is she still alive? Cape Cod is a magical place, as the millions of annual summer visitors will agree. Growing up in Massachusetts, I frequently went to the Cape with my family, enjoyed the marine wildlife, the birds (terns! There are terns!), the beaches and bays, and the magical atmosphere of Barnstable County. I was drawn to this book on that alone. The figurative and literal descriptions of all forms of life on the Cape was beautiful, remarkable. The wheel of life throughout nature—birth, life, decay, death.He didn’t understand why these bittersweet memories were suddenly surfacing. Thirty-eight years, and still, just a finger snap from grief." I would recommend this dark mystery with a hint of the paranormal. I did not adore it however. I liked it greatly. And now I need to use spoilers. Kacey has recently moved in with her father and stepmother after leaving her abusive mother. She has a new stepbrother and half-sister, as well, although her relationship with the whole family is good and not something she takes for granted after having such a tumultuous childhood. She also has two friends named Jade and Bailey, although their relationship, in the way of most teen girl relationships, is tense and fraught with tension. After her troubled relationship with her mother became too much to bear, Kacey Young moves to the small town of Broken Falls, Wisconsin to live with the father she'd never met and his family—his wife, his 13-year-old daughter Lauren, and his stepson, Andrew. In a small town like Broken Falls, everyone knows everyone. So it doesn't take long for suspicions to be pointed at the person they know least of all: Kacey. And she begins to realize trust isn't something that should just be given.