LONG BRIGHT RIVER by Liz Moore – Review & Giveaway

GIVEAWAY CLOSED

LONG BRIGHT RIVER (Riverhead) by Liz Moore will easily will be one of my favorite novels of 2020!

Mickey Fitzpatrick is a tough cop working the Philadelphia streets. She’s seen it all, but fears finding her sister, Kacey a prostitute and drug addict showing up dead on her watch. Both were raised by their bitter grandmother, after their father left and mother ODd and they don’t speak anymore.

Kacey disappears the same time a serial killer is on the loose targeting prostitutes and junkies. Mickey’s determination to find her sister takes her into some very crime ridden neighborhoods, even ones the cops avoid, risking her own death to find her sister before it’s too late.

The novel felt too close at times, since I have sisters. Just the not knowing, while having the power to find the truth had me on the edge of my seat. I liked the way Moore created the character driven novel, while keeping it a family drama. I appreciate how she was able to create compelling unlikable characters without any judgement. It was a true example of how childhood trauma carries throughout our lives.

LONG BRIGHT RIVER is full of tension, plot twists and has a reveal worth waiting for. It’ll be on your mind long after you’ve read the final page.

Her first novel, The Words of Every Song (Broadway Books, 2007), centers on a fictional record company in New York City just after the turn of the millennium. It draws partly on Liz’s own experiences as a musician. It was selected for Borders’ Original Voices program and was given a starred review by Kirkus. Roddy Doyle wrote of it, “This is a remarkable novel, elegant, wise, and beautifully constructed. I loved the book.”

After the publication of her debut novel, Liz obtained her MFA in Fiction from Hunter College. In 2009, she was awarded the University of Pennsylvania’s ArtsEdge residency and moved to Philadelphia.

Her second novel, Heft, was published by W.W. Norton in January 2012 to popular and critical acclaim. Of Heft, The New Yorker wrote, “Moore’s characters are lovingly drawn…a truly original voice”; The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “Few novelists of recent memory have put our bleak isolation into words as clearly as Liz Moore does in her new novel”; and editor Sara Nelson wrote in O, The Oprah Magazine, “Beautiful…Stunningly sad and heroically hopeful.” The novel was published in five countries, was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and was included on several “Best of 2012” lists, including those of NPR and the Apple iBookstore.

Moore’s short fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in venues such as Tin House, The New York Times, and Narrative Magazine. She is the winner of the Medici Book Club Prize and Philadelphia’s Athenaeum Literary Award. After winning a 2014 Rome Prize in Literature, she spent 2014-15 at the American Academy in Rome, completing her third novel.

That novel, The Unseen World, was published by W.W. Norton in July of 2016. Louisa Hall called it “fiercely intelligent” in her review in The New York Times; Susan Coll called it “enthralling . . . ethereal and elegant . . . a rich and convincing period piece” in her review in the Washington Post. The Unseen World was included in “Best of 2016” lists by The New Yorker, the BBC, Publishers Weekly, Vox, Google Play, and Audible.com, among others.

She lives with her family in Philadelphia and is a faculty member of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Temple University.

Thanks to Riverhead Books we have one copy to giveaway.