UNspeakable THINGS

By Jess Lourey

Lourey’s taut family drama and murder mystery is a slow burn that raises your hackles from the outset and keeps you on edge until the end. Cassie McDowell is living the American dream with her parents, school teacher mom, artist dad, and teen big sister, in 1980s Minnesota. But from the outset, we see the cracks in her parents’ carefully constructed visage. As an author, what I loved most about this tale of family secrets and small town complicity, was the intimately drawn characters. Anyone struggling to understand character development needs to see how Lourey does it. She holds a clinic, plunging to scalpel depths to reveal the emotions, fears and dramas that lay underneath the skin–the parts of the human soul we hid from the world. Masterful!