Thank you Hachette Audio for the ALC and @NovelSuspects & Twelve, #partner, for the finished copy of When The Moon Turns to Blood in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Twelve Books / Hachette Audio
Published: June 21, 2022
Summary:
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD examines the culture of end times paranoia and a trail of mysterious deaths surrounding former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, grave digger turned doomsday novelist, Chad Daybell.
When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel.
Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her.
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD tells a gripping story of extreme beliefs, snake oil prophets, and explores the question: if it feels like the world is ending, how are people supposed to act?
My thoughts:
True crime is one area of non-fiction that I am just starting to really get into and so when I am offered the chance to read and review a book in this genre, I don’t hesitate even if I don’t really know the case. And that is definitely true here. I wasn’t aware of this case prior to reading this book, but you can be sure that I will be following it from here on out!
This book is a lot…it’s dense and I am glad I had the audio to alternate with the print because at times, I felt it was almost too much information being given to us. Most of this book focuses on the extremist views of the Mormon church, which I find to be so fascinating. I just can’t wrap my head around how someone becomes so indoctrinated by their religion to this degree.
This case is just so heartbreaking and downright scary. I found myself glued to the parts of the book that discussed the actual case, but was just as interested in the religion/cult parts, too. Despite there being a lot of information to digest, the author really does do a good job giving us a history of the Mormon religion and how it all ties back to a “doomsday” cult-like belief, which I’ve always wondered about. I’m just a little confused as to why this book came out before the case was brought to trial, but on the other hand, now I am aware of it and will be following it to its conclusion.
Audio thoughts:
As I mentioned, I alternated between the print and the audio and that definitely worked for me. The author herself narrates and I enjoyed listening to her tell her story. She definitely made the parts that were deep-rooted in history not drag as much as I was finding them to be in print. I do find that non-fiction in general tends to be better for me on audio and this was definitely the case here.
