Mercury by Amy Jo Burns is a family drama about a woman named Marley who is enveloped in the Joseph family. The Josephs are a family of three brothers who fall into their father's roofing "empire."

In the first half of this book I could not put the book down. I was so intrigued by the mystery introduced at the beginning and the workings of the family as Marley finds herself entangled in their lives. The characters are so rich and the tone dark and ominous!

In the second half, and after the unveiling of the mystery, I felt like all tension and suspense dropped. The focus began to shift between characters with the intention of showing their depth and complexity. The story in these point of view shifts also keeps going back in time to give a more full perspective, but it lost me. I wanted to see the plot and characters keep moving forward.

Ultimately I enjoyed the book. Amy Jo Burns does a really good job of fleshing out these imperfect characters while providing a vivid setting in Mercury.

Thank you to Celadon Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an early review copy in exchange for a review of this title!

4.5 stars
TW: miscarriage
I almost didn't read this one 🫣 I'm not big on family dramas, but believe me when I say, this one is SO good! This centers around 6 members of the Joseph family and their family business. It has: deceit, an affair, death/murder, dementia and more. The book is primarily told from Marley's POV, but by the end you've heard part of the story from everyone. I really enjoyed that as it made me understand the characters a lot more.
The main characters are:
Mick- father, runs the family business
Elise- self-sacrificing matriarch
Waylon- glue and fixer of the family
Baylor- firstborn, but instructed by his mother not to turn into his father
Shay- baby of the brothers trying to find his way (his story gives the book a coming of age feel)
Marley- moved to Mercury as a teenager and made her way into the Joseph family

Amy Jo Burns did a fantastic job with these complex characters. The book really delves into their relationships with each other while also exploring generational trauma, birth order, and why the characters are the way they are. This would be a great one to discuss as a book club and I also felt like it'd make a good mini series.

Quotes:
"Silence, more than anything else, is what it takes to be a Joseph"
"Sometimes a secret was all a woman had to call her own"

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon Books for the chance to read!

“They were all marionettes in the house Mick Joseph had built, dangling from his fingers, jumping to life at the flick of his wrist.” - From Mercury by Amy Jo Burns (@burnsamyjo)

Burns fastidiously chooses the words to a small town mystery set in Pennsylvania in the 90s. Centered around three brothers, their parents, and Marley, the wife of one of the brothers, this character-driven family drama is superb. The thoughtful, lyrical writing will satiate fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and The Dutch House.

“In the Joseph family, Mick aimed for the impossible, Waylon hoped for the best, Baylor planned for the worst. And Shay? Shay Baby was all right, always.”

Burns gives each character a distinct presence and develops their character as the story unfolds over multiple years. I love when a story can make you root for a flawed character and give depth to them.

I don’t want to say much about the plot other than that I enjoyed reading about this problematic family of roofers who struggle with communication, secrets, forgiveness, and love.

I hope this book is made into a movie. It’s the type of storytelling that would be in contention for awards. While it’s only March, I imagine this book will be in my top three for the year.

I highlighted a number of beautifully descriptive lines throughout the book. Here are a few of them:

“Shay loved best when he said, Show me your worst thing. I promise I won’t look away.”

“I wish I knew if I should have tried harder to be a daughter, or harder to be a wife.”

“He thought this might be love – to see past the worst parts of someone, to never see them at all.”

I read The Shiner by this author, which I also enjoyed. Amy Jo Burns is now a must-read author for me. 💛

Thank you to @netgalley for an ARC of this book.

Whoa. This one was emotionally captivating with it's character driven lead and depth of the dysfunctional family storyline. I wasn't expecting to want more to be honest, it was a little slow and dragged for me. In the end, it was a beautiful book about such a complex family and I liked it more than I was expecting.

I really wanted to read this but couldn’t get into it. It felt like a book that needed you to read about half of it before you were really into it. Unfortunately, my TBR pile is too big to commit that time right now. I appreciate the advanced copy and am sure most readers will enjoy this one.

What a great family drama this turned out to be. Two women, coming to the same town, building and keeping a family together. I loved that Burns ended up giving insight to more than the two female leads, with each Joseph man getting time to share their story and true selves. It was an overall great read and I will very likely return for more of Amy Jo Burn's writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the ARC!

Loved this! Heartbreaking and real I wanted to give most of the member of this family a hug in the end. I thought the mystery was well done and added just a little bit extra to this family story. First 5 star 2024 release.

I enjoyed reading this book. The characters were amazingly done and helped me to really see them in my mind. I enjoyed this books setting was the 90’s since I was growing up in the ninety’s too. You do an amazing job writing and I will definitely read other books written by you.

I really wanted to like this book in part because it was set in the 90s, but I just couldn't stay with it. The characters, the premise, the setting - none of this interested me and I just kept finding other things to read while sitting on this. After about 10% in, I opted to DNF.

This was a beautifully written, quiet but impactful story about the Joseph family - a roofing family consisting of the dad Mick and his three sons Baylor, Waylon, and Shay as well as the matriarch Elsie. The dynamics of this family are so interesting and complicated - they are filled with family secrets, hurts, betrayals, and love. Then Marley West comes into town and becomes an important part of each Joseph's life in different ways.

I was fascinated by this family and the ways they are there for each other and the ways they hurt and destroy each other too. The characters were so well written and I really felt the sense of place in this novel. It is a quiet and sometimes slow story - but never dull - each characters grows and changes in different ways and there are some heavy themes and emotions throughout.

And oh yeah, did I mention there is a dead body found in the church attic!? So there is a mystery element weaved throughout the book as well. I enjoyed the layout of the book to with some flash backs or different perspectives shown later in the book - it really kept me invested.

If you loved Hello Beautiful (which I did) for it's sister and family dynamics as well as how an outsider becomes a part of their lives and family in different ways - then you will love this one too.

I highly recommend this one!

Thank you to Netgalley & Celadon Books for this advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

📚Book Review - Mercury by Amy Jo Burns 📚
⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Published: January 2, 2024
Celadon Books
336 pages
Goodreads rating: 3.93⭐

Set in Pittsburgh in the mid-90s, Mercury tells a multigenerational story of the Joseph family. Mick Joseph married his wife, Elise, shortly after returning from the Vietnam War. Without being directly labeled as post-war PTSD, Mick became eccentric in his hobbies and pursuits, only ever considering his own wants and needs. Elise gives everything to her husband and eventually her three sons but wishes for more for her sons and the next generation.

Marley, the daughter of a single mom trying to make ends meet, moves to Mercury as a teenager and soon is mixed in with the two older Jospeh boys. Elise never shows Marley affection and doesn’t learn why until it’s too late.

I loved this complex family drama. I find it fitting that I am writing this review on International Women’s Day, as the novel features three independent, strong women: Elise, Marley, and Jade. The Joseph men repeatedly think of themselves and have selfish actions. At the same time, the three women continue to do everything for their friends and family, sparking a change in expectations and mindset for the generation that will follow.

This story is beautifully written, and I’m glad I chose it for my January BOTM. It was a unique read with excellent character development. Although it is contemporary fiction, it has elements of mystery woven throughout.

Thank you, @netgalley and @celadon books for the ARC.

Mercury by Amy Jo Burns
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The town of Mercury is home to the Joseph family, who run their own roofing business. When the town church has a roofing emergency it forces the family to talk about their past and come to terms with with some hard truths.
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What I liked:
-I thought this was a really good family drama. No family is perfect and the Josephs had lots of their own issues to learn through the course of this story.
-I loved learning more about each character and how I felt completely different feelings towards each of them by the end of the story. When you know a persons past you can understand how they became the person they are.
-The story slowed a little in the middle but I liked how it ended.
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3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 This was my first book by this author but I would like to read more.

This book is part lit fic, part romance, part family saga, and part coming of age fiction. There are secrets and mysteries that I never expected to be woven so well into the lives of a few people. This is a study of a family and the people they depend on as they try to grow a roofing business and hold their relationships together.

I love complicated characters. This book takes it to a new but completely realistic level. These characters feel like people pulled out of real life and portrayed accurately on the page, with all their flaws and all their successes.

Mercury discussed who we are and who we’re meant to be. It remembers the members of families that are typically forgotten and pays homage to the roles they play in our lives. This is a close look at an imperfect family who frequently makes the wrong choices but in the end make the right ones.

I loved the ending and the hope for the future of each character it showed.

Such a fantastic story! I was so sucked into this family and all it's secrets, highs and lows. I loved how it was written and I would love to read more by Burns.

The family drama that I’ve seen make its way across bookstagram the past few weeks definitely lived up to the hype for me!

Told in alternating POVs and timelines, it’s the story of the Jospeh family - their wayward father, their steely mother and the 3 boys. When Marley moves to town and becomes irrevocably tied to the family, she sees just how dysfunctional their family ties are.

This one really worked for me, as family dramas usually do. The alternating POVs gave so much insight to this little family and I couldn’t put it down! The story explores so many things - family dynamics, family trauma, small towns, loyalty and duty. The characters were INCREDIBLY flawed - all of them - and it made for such rich storytelling. I highly recommend!

The *one* thing that irked me the entire time is that the characters were all VERY self aware - but they were young and naive. It would take decades of therapy to get to their self actualization that they achieved at 18-25 years of age😜. Being in their heads propelled the story forward, sure, but it annoyed me that they were so well spoken at such a young age.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this one. Character-driven books are hit or miss for me, and it really depends on the format I use (audio vs. physical), my mood, and the writing style.

I think I’m just at a time in life where this family drama hit hard and moved me. I loved the author’s writing style and how she developed each character so well. You loved (most of) them, but knew they were flawed.

I really enjoyed the brothers - all different, but all likable in very specific ways. The parents weren’t great, but you understood what demons they were struggling with.

Marley and Way’s marriage was so well done. It’s hard. Period. But their love was so evident.

Also a huge fan of the mid-1990s and small-town Pennsylvania setting. (Side note - is the 1990s historical fiction? Please say no because I was born then. Thanks. 😅).

While this dramatic family saga initially took some time to draw me in, I found that somewhere along the line I couldn’t put it down. The author does such an amazing job of letting you feel one way about a character before introducing a new perspective and suddenly turning everything on its head.

The way the story is told, starting with the ‘eerie discovery’ in the church attic and then rewinding to Marley’s arrival in town years earlier, really exemplified how so many decisions make up a life. And how things could be so different if we were to choose different paths, like that Charles Dickens quote: “...think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

Marley is, in many ways, that first link. Will she be the downfall of this family or its salvation? And the same can be said of the Josephs to her.

It left me thinking about how love, from just one person, has the power to change someone’s life, and also, how the lack of it can shape their very existence; the person they become and all of their actions from that point forward. By the end of this story, I felt compassion for every character, even the ones I had previously felt nothing but anger and resentment towards. The ending felt very cathartic and I was genuinely pleased with how it all turned out.

I really can’t say if the Josephs were the best thing that happened to Marley or the worst; I think the author would leave that up to each person’s interpretations. But I can say that the story felt very genuine, in all of the gritty and beautiful and heartbreaking moments that make up a family. And a life.

“There’s more to this life than just trying to survive it.”

Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon Books for allowing me to read this title in exchange for an honest review!

This was my first book by this author and I DEVOURED it. I loved the family drama, SECRETS, suspense / mystery aspect. It kept me wanting to know more and engaged. The ending broke my heart and I literally cried. Just loved the way this book was written and I highly recommend it!!

I loved this literary fiction book! It was definitely character-driven, but unputdownable at the same time. Normally character-driven books can be a bit sluggish for me and while I enjoy them, they aren't always quick reads. I flew through this book and found myself not wanting to read anything else. I loved the complicated Joseph family and of course, Marley.

I loved this story and it's accuracy in how easy it is to become stuck in a small town. I grew up in a small town myself and never really left (moved about an hour away). A sweeping novel of family and family relationships in an area like this. Despite our flaws, we tend to still have each others backs and generally, there is at least one family member who acts as the glue and keeps us all connected. Beautiful story.