Home is Where the Bodies Are
By: Jeneva Rose
Release Date: April 30, 2024
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Award: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Mystery/Thriller (2024)
Rating:

Jeneva Rose’s 2024 novel Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose is a captivating tale of mystery and suspense that will hook readers of literary fiction and family drama from start to finish. The front cover of the hardcover edition perfectly draws readers in—it looks like a VHS tape. However, the contents are not nearly as bloody or horrific as the cover may suggest.

Beth’s mother is in hospice, and her time is running out. Despite Beth’s best efforts to call her estranged siblings home, both return slightly too late. Only Beth hears her mother’s last words, “Don’t trust…” Who she’s speaking about is the question. But that isn’t the only mystery Beth and her siblings, Nicole and Michael, find dropped into their laps. The trio find a home movie while clearing out their mother’s belongings. In that video, their father is covered in blood. A pact is made between their parents and a body is involved, but the details are anyone’s guess.

The story is told from multiple viewpoints, switching between the three siblings’ first-person narration as well as flashbacks told from their mother’s point of view. While this does allow readers to see exactly what various characters are doing at any given time, it doesn’t entirely enhance the narrative. Readers are still held at a bit of a difference, as we aren’t really allowed to get into anyone’s heads aside from Beth and her mother.

Lovers of character-driven stories will find much to enjoy here. Despite having a mystery to solve, at least in theory, the majority of the tale centers around the relationship between the three siblings. Even as children, things were strained between them, with Beth feeling that her brother was often given opportunities that she had been denied. The truth is muddled with the lingering lens of childhood feelings, longstanding grudges, the weight of their mother’s recent death, and the unsolved tragedy of their father’s disappearance.

In many ways, this novel feels very literary in scope and execution rather than the horror, mystery, or thriller it is often marketed as online and in bookstores. This makes Home is Where the Bodies Are a great pick for literary fiction lovers who want to dip their toes into genre fiction. On the other hand, anyone looking for a fast-paced thriller or something more on the horror side of things may not find everything they expect.

Short chapters and the constantly shifting point of view make the narrative feel more fast-paced than it necessarily is. However, tension isn’t always well executed. Situations that could have been truly tense sometimes are overshadowed by a sense of childish grudges, even when real fear and tension would have been more sensical.

Without providing spoilers, I think the big reveal was a bit of a letdown. Despite all the switching points of view, we didn’t get anything from the eyes of the villain. This means that we never really learn any of the reasons why they did what they did, how they feel about it years later, and what their motivations could have possibly been.

In all, I would suggest picking up Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose if you like stories centering on interpersonal relationships, family drama, and character-centered narratives. If you’re here for the crime, mystery, thriller, or horror-esque aspects of the tale, you may not find exactly what you’re hoping for.