Hell in the Heartland

I read most of this book with my mouth hanging open.

December 30, 1999

Ashley Freeman is celebrating her birthday at home with her parents and best friend Lauria Bible. No one expected the night to end with a trailer fire, a double murder, and the disappearance of Ashley and Lauria.

I cannot wrap my head around this investigation at all.

When the sheriff's office arrived on scene, they all immediately took a step back. They knew the Freeman family. Earlier that year, Shane Freeman (Ashley's brother)  was shot to death by their very own men. Which created an unthinkable story, concocted by the sheriff's office, revolving around the events of December 30th. They believed upon searching the residence that there was one body found, presumably Ashley's mother, Kathy. They believed her father, Danny had set his house on fire before taking the girls hostage as a way to get the sheriff's office to give him information on Shane's death. Therefore, a search party for the missing girls wasn't necessary.

That all changed early the next morning when Lorene and Jay Bible, Lauria's parents, walked into the charred remains of the Freeman's trailer and spotted Danny's burned body. They wanted answers and they wanted them now. Where were the girls since they obviously weren't with Danny?

Word seems to get around in small town Oklahoma. But for some reason Lorene was getting nowhere by working with law enforcement. The Bible's have investigated on their own, followed up leads, even created a facebook page, Find Lauria Bible-BBI for people to reach out with any and all information.

In 2018, they finally found who was responsible for this tragedy.

David Pennington, Phil Welch, and Ronnie Busick.

While Pennington and Welch have both passed away years before, Ronnie is now left to provide law enforcement with answers. He can describe the horrifying details leading up to the girls disappearance and supposed deaths but he can't seem to remember where they are now.

 

It's been nearly 22 years since Ashley and Lauria went missing.

 

There is still a $50,000 reward in place.

Tips can be submitted to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation: 1-800-522-8017 or tips@osbi.ok.gov

 

Donations are welcome Lauria and Ashley Scholarship Program

The Final Girl Support Group

Most horror movies have a distinct set of characters.

There's the jock, the nerd, the shady one, the sexy one, and then there's the final girl. The girl who outlives everyone. The girl who kills the killer.

 

I usually get a little chill when the little line at the beginning of the horror film says "the following events are based on a true story." Which makes sense. We're obsessed with death, horror, gore. We root for the underdog, only to see her get annihilated in the sequel.

But Grady Hendrix's new book, The Final Girl Support Group follows the women behind the characters. The one thing they all have in common is that there were all final girls. They all survived the mass murders of their friends and families, and now they have a group where everyone else knows what that's like.

Of course, it wouldn't be a horror novel if that's all it was based on.....

Obviously, someone starts hunting the final girls.

Someone wants Lynnette to be the final final girl and they go to great lengths to make that happen.

All the characters were incredibly diverse. The final girls in this group are Lynnette, who never truly felt like a final girl; Heather, a recovering drug addict whose halfway house burns down; Dani, a woman taking care of her dying wife and their ranch; Marilyn, a Texan debutante; and Julia, a woman who was confined to a wheelchair after her attack left her paralyzed. Oh and all their attacks happened over 20 years ago, so this ragtag team is well into their 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Honestly, Grady Hendrix is an auto-buy author for me so I'm never disappointed with his work.

 

Looking for other books by Grady Hendrix?

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

My Best Friend's Exorcism

Horrorstör

We Sold Our Souls

How to Sell a Haunted House

BadAsstronauts

Scar Tissue

I honestly don't even know where to start with this review.

It's a miracle Anthony Kiedis is even alive right now.

Before forming the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony Kiedis was living an absolutely absurd life. He first smoked pot with his dad when he was 11. He begged for his dad's friends to let him shoot coke with them. He accidentally did heroin when he was 14. It was damn near impossible for him to live any kind of normal life after a childhood like that. He wanted to be just like his party animal dad. He wanted to act like him, dress like him, and party with him. Preteen Anthony regularly found himself in downtown LA, chilling with his dad in the VIP section of the club.

 

When Anthony was in middle school, he realized he had a knack for poetry. But his mind was far from using those skills to create something worthwhile. He was addicted to getting high with his friends and stealing shit. In high school, he met Michael Balzary, better known as Flea. They ran all over downtown LA making such a ruckus. They quickly formed a lifelong friendship.

 

Anthony and Flea finally decided to create a band.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers quickly found a sound for themselves and began touring. When the money started pouring in Anthony put a roof over his head and immediately went on a bender. This seemed to be his routine....play music, get paid, find a girl, relapse. This went on for nearly 20 years before rehab finally stuck. I genuinely don't understand how this man is damn near 60 and still kickin.

 

The amount of drug-fueled stories in this book is absolutely astonishing. So many of his friends were overdosing while at the peaks of their lives and careers. RHCP as a whole dealt with a lot of drug and booze related issues. But somehow they became one of the biggest rock bands in the world. I'm so beyond glad that I got to see them play live with some of my very best friends.

A Betting Woman

I'm actually obsessed with Jenni L. Walsh's writing style.

Every book she's written gives voice to a girl who society never understood.

I actually got A Betting Woman in the Once Upon a Book Club box. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this subscription box, Once Upon a Book Club sends you a book and goodies to open at specific pages throughout the book. This enhanced reading experience has me giddy each time I get to a page that says "Open your gift!"

So everything you see in the photo came in my Once Upon a Book Club box.

So A Betting Woman is set during the California Gold Rush.

In New Orleans, Simone Jules has just lost her entire family to a fire. Not wanting to continue on living with constant reminds of her twin sister, she leaves everything behind......her house, her shop, even her fiance. She starts new in San Fransisco. To pay for her housing, she accepts a job downstairs in the saloon. But she refuses to be a saloon girl. Instead she propositions Monsieur Sullivan for her very own card table. Vingt-et-un is her game of choice, better known in today's world as blackjack or 21.

After losing everything in another fire, Simone continues to travel with the miners and muleteers. At each stop, she knew men would flock to her table. Who wouldn't want to lose their money to a mysterious, exotic, French-tongued woman? Upon landing in Nevada, Simone decides to reinvent herself. She decides to start fresh with a new name.... Madame Eleanor Dumont. 

 

Under this guise, she quickly buys a storefront and begins crafting her very own emporium, aptly named Vingt-et-un. She expects men to be respectable when entering her establishment. No weapons, no cussing, no fighting, and no beer. Just card tables, rolled cigarettes, and whiskey.

 

For several years, business is booming. Miners from all over are coming to Nevada for work and winding down at Madame Dumont's. Being a croupier is in her blood, but what is she to do when all the gold dries up in this town? Be someone's wife? Absolutely not. She follows the miners wherever they may go. Dealing cards and taking names. Her legacy and quirks follow her. The miner's know who she is. They've all heard of the French woman who has no problem taking money from men. They respect her and she always listens to them.

At times, this book really felt like nothing was happening.

But I think that comes with the comfort Eleanor was experiencing.

This story literally spans over 15 years.

 

If you like historical fiction, strong women, and the Gold Rush then you'll absolutely love this book.

 

Looking for other books by Jenni L Walsh?

Becoming Bonnie (Bonnie #1)

Side By Side (Bonnie #2)

 

Want to learn more about the author?

Meet Jenni L Walsh

I'll Be Gone in the Dark

I'm so glad this man was finally brought to justice.

Joseph James DeAngelo was sentenced to 12 life sentences + eight years.

He had 40+ years to walk around without a single person knowing who he is or what he'd done. He got married, had three children, and even stayed in the area!

No one expected a former police officer to be the man behind the mask.

The man who raped 50 women.

The man who killed 13 people.

The man who burglarized 120 homes.

Michelle McNamara dedicated the final years of her life to learning everything that was to know about the man she dubbed "Golden State Killer." She passed away before his name and face was brought to light.

Michelle was a true crime sleuth at heart. With the internet at her fingertips, she was determined to bring this case into the public eye. For years, no one had ever even heard of the East Area Rapist (EAR) or the Original Night Stalker (ONS), commonly combined as EAR/ONS. At the height of his 10 year crime spree, DNA testing began to make its way into crime labs all over the country. Which, in my opinion, is why he slowed down and eventually halted his voyeuristic rapes and murders. Being a cop himself, he knew that this new technology could break the case wide open.

 

I knew very little about this case before reading I'll Be Gone in the Dark.

But Michelle immediately began laying out the facts of the case. It's amazing to me the levels of planning needed to walk away without leaving a trace of evidence. Not only was he stalking his victims, he was casing the entire neighborhood. He knew their schedules, he knew their routines, he knew the layouts of all their freaking houses. Victims could hear him walking on their damn roofs. Yet he evaded capture for nearly FOUR DECADES.

 

It bothers me that not all cold cases will get their day in the sun, knowing that generations of families will go on without ever knowing the truth.

Palo Alto

I'll never understand how this book of short stories got a movie deal.

Palo Alto has a great premise. It's all punk ass kids running around California in the '90s. They're doing drugs, having sex, fighting each other....normal teen stuff. But this was like.....kinda racist and definitely sexist. Which is incredibly odd given that this was written in 2010 and released as a movie in 2013. It's just very problematic throughout the entire book.

 

The sad part is, even with all the disgusting shit James Franco wrote, it made sense for the characters. Each character he wrote about was so incredibly flat. Regardless of whose POV it was at the time, all the other characters were only there to serve a purpose for whoever was speaking. Every single person was a means to an end. That whole thing just felt so gross.

 

It bothered me reading the first story in the book. This story was titled "Halloween" and detailed the night that a rich, white boy got into a drunk driving accident, killed a woman, and somehow had zero freaking consequences.

 

In the story titled "American History" we get a pro-con argument for slavery??? Oh and this is where we see the N word for the first time.....it comes up again.

 

But I think the story "Chinatown" takes the cake. This story is by far the most cringe-worthy story in the book. A half-Vietnamese girl moves to town and they immediate stereotype her, calling her names that I don't feel comfortable repeating. On top of that, one of the teens begins pimping her out all over town. It ends with the teens laughing about their rape and sodomy charges and how they'll get away with it.

The whole thing was just absolutely disgusting and I would not recommend this to anyone, ever.