Not at all to my liking. Drags on and on. Boring. When reading a book feels like work then there is something very wrong. I will not read anything else by this author.

I just couldn't get interested in the first chapter.

3.5 stars. There were a couple of things wrong with Long Black Veil, but I really liked the originality of the characters. In 1980, a group of university friends go into an abandoned jail, and one of them disappears. 35 years later the body is found, and the group's history gets stirred up again. The story moves back and forth in time, and it moves from one point of view to another. My first complaint is that it takes a few chapters to figure out who's who. My second complaint is that the plot is a bit messy and defies credibility on a number of occasions. But -- and it's a sincere but -- I still mostly enjoyed reading Long Black Veil because of the characters, their interactions and their personal musings. They are not necessarily likeable, but they are interesting -- especially Judith whose identity shifts dramatically in the story. I also liked how the author thought through the different ways in which people carry the the weight of their past. This one isn't so much a mystery as a character study. I am now definitely interested in reading the author's memoir [book:She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders|54935]. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

Intelligently written, dark, and fascinating. It features a very large cast of characters, and at about 25% in I almost put it down and started something else, confused about who was who. I'm really glad I didn't, as it becomes much clearer as the book goes on. This is one of those books that is best enjoyed going in blind. I'm going to be very careful not to include any spoilers in this review, but it's going to be a short one because they're major plot points. It can get a bit dark and depressing at times, but it made me think and I enjoyed the ride at the end.

A group of friends went into an abandoned penitentiary one day and it changed their lives. No one will be the same after this eventful day. One of them disappears inside, a newlywed never to be seen again. Though her husband and friends hope that she's out there somewhere, it seems she's never left that despairing place. Her remains are found twenty years later. The friends and husband she left behind are now all in their fifties. The find reignites the interest in the case, and the police want someone to go down for it... but will it be the right person?

I was given an ARC of this book from Net Galley and Crown Publishing, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased.

In 1980, a group of college friends and one ten-year-old boy decide to explore an abandoned penitentiary. However, when they try to leave, they discover that someone has locked them in. In an attempt to find a way out, they separate. Eventually, they do escape but not before one of them goes missing.

Now, twenty years later, a body has been discovered and one of the group is charged with murder. Each member of the group tells the story in their own way but only one, Judith Carrigan, can prove his innocence. Unfortunately, she has been harbouring secrets that, if revealed, could cost her the life she has so carefully and painstakingly crafted.

Long Black Veil by author Jennifer Finney Boylan is an interesting mystery with lots of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. It was a bit confusing at times as it has a large cast of characters and it switches points of view frequently. The narration also moves from first to third person. But once I got to know the characters, the story moved along at, if not a fast pace, a very steady one for the most part. It does seem to go off in odd directions occasionally but, as the story progresses, it becomes clear, that even these digressions are not random but serve a purpose within the storyline. And if I didn’t find the pacing fast, I found the story engrossing, the plot original, the twists surprising, and the end satisfying. A well-written mystery that gets a high recommendation from me.

Thanks to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

While I was very interested in the premise and setting of this story I found it hard to read due to there being quite a few characters with non gender specific nicknames and the narration jumping back and forth between past and present was not enjoyable for me. This one has went into my Did Not Finish pile.

This book got its title from the Johnny Cash song though I will tell you I do not get the connection. I finally figured out how the picture on the cover related to the book, a bit later than I would like to admit.

The basic premise of the story is that a group of college friends go to check out a closed prison and while there one of them disappears. 20 years later, the body is found and her husband is accused of her murder. Only one person can prove his innocence. This is where the real story comes in to play. And, while it may be a spoiler to some people, it shouldn’t be. Casey’s witness has had a sex change and is now a woman. Her friends think she is dead and her husband doesn’t know about her past. The finding of the body increases the need for Judith to out herself to save her friend. But can she do it? The story telling bounces around between the past and the present as puzzle pieces fall into place and we learn the real who-done-it as well as follow Judith on her journey. Ms. Boylan’s characters are strong and well defined. Her points may not be bolded, but through the pages you come to see the transgender struggle. I was completely in awe at how well this one quote sums up how many people feel about those who are on untraditional paths, not just transgenders: “Changing genders seemed like a very complicated way of solving a problem that was more simply solved by accepting the body that you had.” Oh, if it were only so simple! But Ms. Boylan doesn’t hit the reader upside the head with her politics. Instead, the emotions and the reality are woven graciously throughout the book. This book should be applauded for presenting a relatable face to something that confuses many people. With multi-layered plots and well developed characters, this book is more than just a really really good mystery!

Considering the fact that I have been anxiously awaiting this for about 4 months now, I am absolutely delighted to say Long Black Veil did not disappoint. In fact, this is precisely the kind of story I trusted Jennifer Finney Boylan to tell, full of hope and drama, but also deeply relevant to those of us approaching it from a transgender perspective.

Minor spoiler there, I guess, but if you have ever read anything by Jennifer Finney Boylan, or even have a cursory awareness of who she is, then the cover blurb is all too transparent (no pun intended). A woman whose family and identity are threatened by the secrets of her past, who is a very different person from the woman she is today? That can only mean one thing.

While most reviewers have approached this as a mystery/thriller, I would actually like to stick with that transgender angle. Long Black Veil is a story that explores the question of gender identity, complete with all of the secrets and prejudices that entails. As exemplified by the fact that her chapters are the only ones narrated in the first person, Judith is the heart of this story. It is her identity, her journey, and her circumstances that drive so much of it. She has a difficult choice to make, but either she risks losing the family and life that she has built, or a good friend ends up wrongly imprisoned for a murder he did not commit.

I loved the way the story moved between narrators and time periods, teasing out the core mystery of what happened and to whom. The historical scenes in Eastern State Penitentiary are incredibly creepy, like something out of a Stephen King novel, but that mystery is really just the foundation of the novel. It is the character study and the relationship stories that distinguish this, with a sad, often tragic look at how friendships dissolve and how identities crumble. The climax of the story does feel a bit rushed, and does rely a bit too heavily on a few coincidences, but they lend it an element of black humor that is very much needed going into those final dark moments.

To be honest, I was not sure how Long Black Veil would end, and I really worried about the fate of Judith's story, but Jennifer Finney Boylan does a stellar job of tying up loose ends.

Thanks Crown Publishing and netgalley for this ARC.

Starts slow but stick with it cuz this is a slowly simmering exploding with secrets and shocking revelations

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown publishing for a review copy of this book.

The first third of this book made no sense at all. No character development, plot was nonexistent. I almost put it in the dnf pile. However, when the author finally settled in to write the story, it improved. Desperately needs an editor for the first third.

The last 2/3 of the novel was much better. The story finally took off, the characters were developed as the author flipped back and forth in time/place. However, there was absolutely no reason really given for those involved in the murder until the big reveal towards the end. The vet kind of popped up from nowhere and was given the deus ex machina role.

It felt like this was a draft- full of good bits and pieces, but not well put together.

I love how JFB tells a story, the way she allows it to unfold in its own time. LONG BLACK VEIL contains elements of a thriller, a mystery, a hint of paranormal, but is still a wonderfully character-driven piece of literary fiction. The theme of a trans person living in stealth was profound. I think those of us who are younger, who've always had online community, can't fully grasp how isolating this was in pre-internet days. This eventually comes back around to address the fact that our past will always be an important part of us, even if we try to leave it behind. Great read.

This book was listed as a Mystery. It starts creepily enough in an abandoned psychiatric facility, at night, when a group of friends gets trapped and one of them disappears. But the novel then takes a turn into more dramatic territory and the disappearance/murder is not even that relevant. It focuses more on the characters and their relationships, giving special attention to Judith - whose chapters are written in the first person versus the rest, which are in third person. Fans of more dramatic novels will probably enjoy it more but, being a fan of whodunits and all things creepy, I was more interested in the backstory.

Jennifer Finney Boylan’s Long Black Veil begins like many other “awful thing happens to a group of friends”stories, but it quickly becomes more complicated—and more affecting. We are told at the beginning that some of the friends will die. What we don’t know until much later is why everything happened the way it did. While we have the mystery to sort out, Finney Boylan also gives us a moving portrait of a trans woman who wrestles with the long shadow of her past.

Long Black Veil moves back and forth in time from 1980, when the awful thing happened, to the later 1980s to 2015. The awful thing is the death of one of the friends when they get locked inside the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary. No body is found (not until 2015), so the friend is only missing officially. The night at the Penitentiary breaks up the friends, who drift through the next 35 years. The chapters change perspective from one friend to another, so we get to see how the death has arrested their development into adulthood. They can function, but it’s clear that none of them is living the life they wanted—with one exception.

The exception is Judith. Judith was born in a male body before transitioning in the late 1980s. She hasn’t told her husband or her adopted son anything about her past in the sixteen years they’ve been a family; the men have told her they don’t want to know. There are some small marital spats, but Judith is very much content with her life. To be honest, I was much more interested in her character than in some of the others because I wanted to see how Finney Boylan would depict someone who didn’t feel right in the body they were born in.

The mystery part of Long Black Veil gives some added tension to the whole, but I think I might have been happy with just Judith’s story on its own. That said, when the literary and mystery parts of the novel start to converge again at the end of the book, I liked how the narratives asked the same question in two different ways. The question, of course, is how do you make amends for the past? In Judith’s case, it was her initial disappearance and starting her life over without telling anyone. In the case of the rest of the characters, it’s owning up to what really happened to their friend that night at the Penitentiary.

On balance, I enjoyed reading Long Black Veil in spite of some clumsiness with the disparate genre elements. What made this book so engrossing was the psychological portrait of Judith as she becomes the person she always was on the inside.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 11 April 2017.

THE LONG BLACK VEIL
Jennifer Finney Boylan


MY RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️▫️▫️
PUBLISHER Crown Publishing
PUBLISHED April 11, 2017


SUMMARY
It was a hot August day in 1980, and six friends from college are together for a wedding. After a post-wedding visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the group decides to check out an abandoned prison that had opened in 1829 and closed in 1972. Shortly after entering the open gates of the mid-evil looking prison, the group discovered that the gate have been chained and they were locked in. The group split up in order to search for a way out. And then it happened. One of the girls in the group goes missing.

In 2015, thirty-five years later, a skull is found at the prison. An archaeology student had been digging in one of the rooms of cellblock five and found it. The missing girl from so long ago had finally been found. She had been murdered and stuffed in a tunnel. It hits the news. Casey, one of the six friends, and husband of the missing girl, was under investigation for the murder. Judith is the only person that can definitively testify to Casey's whereabouts in the prison that night. But to testify, Judith will have to reveal a secret that could cause her to lose both her family and her friends.


REVIEW
The use of the prison was an interesting choice for the initial setting. It was eerie and a little creepy. That scene made me wonder what kind of book I was getting myself into. After finishing the book and considering the cast of characters, the setting seemed to work.

LONG BLACK VEIL proved to be an interesting character study of the six friends that entered the prison that night. The book explored who they were then, and who they became thirty years later as a result of what had happened that night. I found myself wanting more details on the characters. Jennifer Finney Boylan made this book compelling by touching on several thought-provoking topics such as loyalty, love, identity, obesity, and special needs.

Much of the book was told from Judith's point of view. She had painstakingly built a happy life for herself. She and her loving husband and son lived on an idyllic lake in Maine. Her struggles and her decision on whether or not to reveal her long held secret and help Casey was fascinating. I enjoyed reading about Judith's life and her tribulations.

Overall, I liked the book. At times, I was a little confused with the narration. Thanks to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I did not finish this book as I did not engage with this story at all.

Six college friends, a former teacher and a ten-year-old boy take an unofficial tour of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1980 (after it has been abandoned and before it becomes a Historic Site) only to find themselves locked in at night after a drenching thunderstorm. The Philadelphia police rescue them but cannot locate Wailer (neé Winifred), Jon Casey's bride of one day. The experience obviously rocks the survivors and causes aftershocks and major changes throughout their lives.
The action moves back and forth from Philadelphia in 1980 to the present-day city and its environs as well as to Maine, Poughkeepsie and Florida and ends at Halloween at the Terror Beyond the Walls event, a "Massive Haunted House in a Real Prison" after the characters learn the fate of the missing Wailer.
My Aunt lives near Eastern State and from early on I wondered about what went on behind the tall, forbidding walls. When we finally toured the Penitentiary a few summers ago, I experienced the cell blocks and the individual cells and the Surveillance Hub which allowed a single observer to observe all the cellblocks. Even during a sunny summer afternoon, the atmosphere was somber, but not as terrifying as the events in THE LONG BLACK VEIL.

I'm sorry but I just couldn't get interested in this book and characters . Perhaps better for another demographic .

Interesting story that got lost in too many characters and amateurish writing.

What a strange, wonderful book!It was not at all what I expected going in, but ended up being much more interesting and thoughtful than I had expected!

Too disjointed. Main story interesting but not executed well. Too much bavk and forth. Too many narrators to keep track of