3 out of 4 stars
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Blood Ties: The Bonds are Permanent by Ashley Fontainne and Lillian Hansen is the first book of the new Magnolia Series. The story revolves around the crimes and injustices committed to the elderly in retirement homes that is all too unfortunately common and this book shows the point of view from both the criminals and those in the justice system trying to protect the senior citizens. Karina and her mother LiAnn want nothing more than to leave their pasts behind them in Los Angeles and start over in the quiet town of Hot Springs, Arizona while taking care of LiAnn’s ailing parents on their farm. Soon a family friend approaches them about some possible thievery at the Magnolia retirement home, but when they start investigating further, the two women discover something far more sinister at play and it will put their whole family in danger.
There are many different characters in this book and it switches point of view between five of them so the reader gets to know more than any one of them. We have the heroines, LiAnn and Karina, a retired cop and private investigator respectively, who are each trying to get over the atrocities they saw in their jobs as well as a tumultuous love life and they think moving to Arkansas for some Southern hospitality is the answer. Then there is Ceaser, an aging mob boss in charge of the nefarious activities happening in multiple retirement communities that include murder, stealing, and body part trafficking. Lastly there is Nick and Lucas, two men who probably would have been okay guys, but one way or another got roped into Ceaser’s schemes and now cannot get out from under the thumb of “the Devil”.
The different points of view added some depth to this book, but the authors also employed the use of memories pretty well. Each one was pretty clearly marked as a memory so it was easy enough to follow along and not get confused- which was nice since many authors mess that one up. I thought overall that this book was a little slow; the only things helping it along were the characters’ stories and memories because there really wasn’t a whole lot going on otherwise. Sometimes things got a little long winded - there was one several page lament that comes to mind where Karina was chiding herself for having too many emotions ruling her - but the authors do get bonus points for strong imagery and lots of detail. It was especially interesting when Ceaser was losing his mind to dementia and kept seeing his dead wife, who at times was quite beautiful or quite gruesome.
So most of the book was pretty slow in my opinion, up until the very end when things finally all came together and there was some intense action. There was also a bit of a twist at the end that I won’t spoil here but was pretty interesting. I will say I thought the very ending after the dust settled was particularly sweet.
Overall, I would give Blood Ties 3 out of 4 stars. The only reason I didn’t give it a 2 was because of the ending, which I really did like. Otherwise it was just a slower read for me, but might appeal to others, especially if they like the “down south” type stories as it gave a good representation of that.
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Blood Ties - The Bonds Are Permament
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