Lay Your Body Down
Fiction
William Morrow
June 27, 2023
Advance Reader Copy
352
Free from publisher
After Del Walker fled her small hometown and its cult-like church, she vowed to never return. The man she loved, Lars, left her to marry the local golden girl Eve, and their romance is now the focus of Eve’s viral blog espousing the pastor’s conservative philosophy about women and marriage. But six years later, Lars is suddenly killed, and she’s convinced it couldn’t have been an accident.
When Del returns to her hometown for the funeral, she discovers the now mega-church—and the insidious, patriarchal teachings of Pastor Rick Franklin—has grown not only in size but in influence. Eve was clearly discontent in her marriage, despite the carefully constructed “Noble Wife” positivity of her blog posts, and Del knows better than anyone just how far she will go to get what she wants. Del is determined to cut through the church’s lies and corruption to find out who killed Lars—even if it means confronting the religious trauma she’s spent years trying to bury.
My review:
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel about a church with a preacher who may be misusing his power of the pulpit, leading to suspicious consequences. There is a lot to unpack with this one. The first is the issue of the main character, driven from her small town after being humiliated by the pastor for something she feels was not totally her fault. She also has to deal with the rejection of her former love (who's funeral starts the ball rolling on her investigation of the church) who without much explanation marries another church woman. Then there is the death of Lars, which is ruled accidental without the police department following any kind of investigative protocol. There is the look at marriages and what can happen when things don't go according to plan. Of course there is the widespread reach of Pastor Rick and Messiah church, which very much controls the entire town (its businesses and its people). I was totally invested in this story. It was dark and gritty without being scary or graphically violent. The characters were very well portrayed so you never felt they were not believable in their actions or their beliefs. There were lots of little twists and turns, and you never really knew who to trust. Just when I thought I had something figured out, it would veer in another direction, keeping me guessing until the end. There is lots of evidence of misogyny and the women are definitely kept in their place through the church's teachings. Of course greed also plays a part, as it does with any mega church misusing its power.
Definitely not an anti- religious book, only anti- cult type religions, this was an immersive whodunnit that kept me engaged until the end.
