The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt by Andrea Bobotis

☆☆☆☆
Kindle Edition, 320 pages
Expected publication: July 9th 2019 by Sourcebooks Landmark
About the Book:
Judith Kratt inherited all the Kratt family had to offer—the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder no one talks about. She knows it's high time to make an inventory of her household and its valuables, but she finds that cataloging the family belongings—as well as their misfortunes—won't contain her family's secrets, not when her wayward sister suddenly returns, determined to expose skeletons the Kratts had hoped to take to their graves. Interweaving the present with chilling flashbacks from one fateful evening in 1929, Judith pieces together the influence of her family on their small South Carolina cotton town, learning that the devastating effects of dark family secrets can last a lifetime and beyond.
I wonder what made our house a home for me. Was it my family?
Or was it the things in their proper places?
Oh how I love southern fiction, especially when it falls in the historical side. My other favourite genre is mysteries and this wonderful novel had both. I couldn't wait to dive in, and dive in I did. I read the whole thing in one sitting and I wasn't disappointed!

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is a novel about ordinary people, living ordinary lives, filled with ordinary triumphs and tragedies, successes and failures, love and longing – even the setting is ordinary. What makes it exceptional is Andrea Bobotis' extraordinary writing and storytelling. This book is totally engaging and a seamless read. The characters are three dimensional and exceptional only in the way we all are unique and, though flawed, capable of generous and noble deeds. The overriding context – the family, the relationships, and the times stay connected. This novel particularly shines in the area relationships between the characters. Bobotis really gets family – mine, yours, everyones.

Though even as I was immersed in the characters and events I was worried she wouldn’t be able to pull it all together and there’d be annoying and disconcerting loose ends. But the ending is not only satisfying, like all good endings, it seems inevitable. A really finely written book. I was amazed at how authentic Bobotis voice was in so many characters and in the various situations she took us to. All were plausible and interesting. Highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark and Andrea Bobotis for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

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