I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

The writing here is so fresh and alert. I have to say I’m very impressed with all of Catapult’s publications this year. But from the beginning, I was laughing, and hanging on for this fun, an honest helluva ride. Gah!


Lines like: “You wouldn't know God if he bit your ass and called you Sally.”

She told me she never nursed me a day in her life and that's why her breasts were still buoyed up on their own instead of sinking down in flaps of sadness. She was very concerned that one day they would give up so she gave them little pep talks—come on, girls, don't fail me now. Ready steady.

This is the best book I’ve read this year and one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time.

My heart was hurting throughout this entire book from the amount of unconditional love even through brutality.

I think Bieker perfectly captured the mentality of a 14-year-old young woman. Her faith in people, her naïveté, and her strength were so raw and realistic.

This is a beautiful exploration of motherhood, cults, faith, and feminism. I cheered, cried, and felt hopeful.

Please read this.

I decided to request this one after seeing a few reviews from my friends and dived into it right away, looking for a deep connection to a story and the characters. I started to get a little worried about the way it started and wondered what I got myself into. I hung in there and was rewarded with an unquie look at the bond between our main character 14-year-old Lacey and her mother.

The story is set in drought-stricken cult ran town by Pastor Vern, who preys on the vulnerabilities of the members, especially with the children. He promises them rain for doing assignments that I felt were too bizarre by the way the story was told, and the cult storyline wasn't a convincing part of the story for me. I did read this one on my own, so I didn't get the chance to talk about that with anyone. Maybe I would have felt differently after chatting about that.

What did create that emotional response I was looking for was with Lacey's growth throughout the story. Lacey's mother is banished from the community. Instead of Lacey holding feelings of abandonment and anger towards her mother she becomes determined to find her. Lacey develops some interesting friendships and through some unquie women, she learns something about herself and sees her mother differently through them.

The story unravels slowly and, at times, almost lost me, however, Lacey's observation of the world around her and her sense of humour under all the pressure and her will to survive kept me hanging in there.

I received a copy from the publisher on NetGalley

The weather has been dry in Peaches, California for as long as Lacey can remember. It's caused financial hardship to the area but hopefully with the help of Pastor Vern rain will come again to Peaches. Lacey believed in the power of Vern but once her mother is banished from their church, Lacey begins to see maybe Vern isn't the second coming he's maintained he is.

Chelsea Bieker's debut novel, Godshot, is a heartbreaking and real coming-of-age tale. I captivated from the writing after two chapter and had to get my own copy. As the story continued to grow I found myself rooting more and more for Lacey and she started to figure out her own place within Peaches and the world. Bieker doesn't sugarcoat her characters and readers are able to see their ups and downs as the novel progresses. Godshot isn't your typical cult novel but more about the coming-of-age of Lacey. Content warnings for suicide, incest and sexual assault.

I can't wait to see what Bieker will come up with in the future.

DNFed at 25% because this book is really dark and has introduced incest and sexual assault plot lines that I just do not want to read about. The writing style and descriptions of the town are really great, and I am interested in seeing what Bieker does in the future.

This book was so beautifully written and made me realize that I kinda like reading about cults? I'd say it's a slow burn plot-wise but the characters and writing style are so solid I didn't really mind. I honestly want to read anything and everything by Chelsea Bieker (and not just because she has a great first name, but I may be biased).

Also, can we just talk about this cover for a second because woah, it is AMAZING!

Thank you to Catapult & NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Choosing books to read during quarantine has proved challenging. It's been a tricky balance of trying to find something that's both captivating and allows for escape, but nothing too sad to rock my already unstable emotional state. Yet I also want something that makes me think. Chelsea Bieker's debut novel Godshot checks all of those boxes.

Set in the fictional town of Peaches, Calif, Godshot follows fourteen-year-old Lacey May. She lives with her unstable mother, who has a void that she fills with men, alcohol, and most recently, religion. That's because Peaches has been undergoing a severe drought. A few years back, Pastor Vern relocated to the small town, and with him came rain. Pastor Vern promises that more rain will come if the residents of Peaches fulfill secret assignments given to him by God himself. In order for women and girls to be eligible for the assignments, they must be a "woman of blood," aka, they have to have started menstruation. As the girls turn to women, they gladly let Pastor Vern known when they start bleeding. He brought the rain, so he is the one thing that can save the town.

If this sounds like the beginning of a cult story, that's because it is. Pastor Vern has the entire town of Peaches at his beck and call. Well, almost.

When you meet Lacey May and her mother at the start of the novel, her mother's focus has turned back to alcohol. Vern has been the unspoken leader of Peaches for years now and there is still no rain to speak of. Shortly into the story, Lacey's mother is exiled for sinning. She has lost her faith in Vern and is outed for consuming beer. She runs off with a man, leaving Lacey behind to fend for herself. Lacey moves in with her grandmother, Cherry, who is more devout to Vern and her collection of taxidermy mice than her own family. So Lacey sets off on a mission to find her mother. To do so, she takes up the last job her mother had: a phone sex operator.

Godshot is a story of mothers and daughters, of cults, of good versus evil, of sex, and of desire. The women are oppressed, their bodies thought to be parts of the church and not their own. Comparisons could be drawn to The Handmaid's Tale, especially once you understand the book's title.

Bieker effortlessly transported me to the town of Peaches. The storyline drew me in, made me feel angry, sad, and happy, yet I was able to forget about everything going on in our world at the moment. It's the first book in a while I kept thinking about even when I was not enthralled with reading. Godshot is an uncomfortable comfort read that is exactly what I needed right now.

Godshot is out now via Catapult.

I did not like this book. I couldn’t get into the strange plot. Initially I thought the premise was just weird enough to be really good, but I just didn’t care for the characters or the story.

Godshot: Chelsea Bieker
Release date: Mar. 31, 2020
Publisher: Catapult

I LOVED this novel. 5 stars from me!
Set in the small town of Peaches, California, fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live on deserted, drought ridden land. Once an agricultural paradise, residents now turn desperately to a cult leader named Pastor Vern who promises rain and spiritual guidance. He gives each individual in his congregation (or cult) an ‘assignment’ and tells them its crucial for them to keep it a secret or else it won’t bring the rain that everyone prays for. After Lacey’s mother abandons her and Lacey must face the disgusting and skin crawling acts of the men of the cult, she begins to uncover the full story of Pastor Vern. As a semi-coming-of-age novel, Lacey sets out to find her mother with the only guidance coming from the romance novels her mother had stashed away.
I loved this book because of the unyielding plot, the grit of Lacey’s life and the heartfelt emotions that it induced.
This is a tale of love, loss, resilience, and strength. It is a thought-provoking page turner you will love! Fantastic job to Chelsea for her first novel. Just brilliant.
Along with posting on Net Galley, I will be posting my review to Goodreads, Amazon (when it becomes available), my Instagram (which has over a two thousand book review followers) and my blog. Please find the link to my blog post below. I am very grateful for the opportunity to review such a raw and all-encompassing novel. All opinions and thoughts are my own. Thank you very much.
Link to Blog Post: https://ifyoucanreadthisdotblog.wordpress.com
Link to Instagram Post: https://www.instagram.com/ifyoucan_read_this/
Link to Goodreads Post: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/112342382-chanel-johnson

Respectfully
Chanel Johnson

Belief is a powerful thing, rendered all the more powerful when it is uncompromising. Cults weaponize that uncompromising belief, using it to entangle the vulnerable and establish control.

That controlling entanglement is a big part of why we find cults so fascinating. From the outside looking in, so many of their doctrines seem patently absurd on their faces, and yet people on the inside unwaveringly accept those ideas as bedrock truth. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Chelsea Bieker’s debut novel “Godshot” offers a look at one such perspective. It’s the story of a teenage girl swept up in the fervor surrounding a charismatic religious leader, a man who many in her small town believe to be something more than mortal. Through her eyes, we watch as a small town crumbles beneath the weight of faith – faith that may well be misplaced.

It’s a bleak tale of desperate hope, an illustration of the personal horrors people are willing to endure for any possibility of redemption – even an illusory one – as well as exploring the courage it takes to defy the lockstep beliefs of those around you … and the consequences of that defiance.

The California town of Peaches was once a booming agricultural provider, the self-styled raisin capital of the world. But a relentless and punishing drought has left the fields arid and barren. The town’s taps creak out a trickle of brown (when they work at all). It is a land of parched desolation.

The desperate populace turns to Pastor Vern, a self-styled religious guru who has found a way to seize upon the small town’s hope. He has propped himself up as not just a man of God, but a son of God; through flashy services and custom-printed Bibles, he sweeps the citizens into a fervor by promising them that he and only he can bring the rains that the townspeople desire. His plan to do so involves a number of mysterious “assignments” that he gives to various parishioners – assignments that are to be executed without question.

Lacey May is 14 years old, living with her alcoholic mother. She is a true believer – in Vern she trusts. But when her mother is exiled from the community and ultimately runs off with a man she doesn’t even really know, Lacey is devastated. She moves in with her grandmother Cherry, a true zealot … and the questions start to arise.

Those questions are only amplified as the true nature of some of Vern’s “assignments” become clear to her. Over and over, Lacey is expected to subvert her own thoughts and ideas and concede any agency to the male figures around her; as the full scope of Vern’s plan to restore fertility to the land comes into focus, Lacey realizes that she needs to fight back. She needs to find her mother. And she’ll have to enlist the help of some unlikely allies to do it.

But the passion of the true believer is strong; their faith is unwavering. And with most of the town devoted wholly to whatever rescue they believe Vern can bring, standing against him is dangerous indeed.

“Godshot” sneaks up on you. You’re carried along by the thoughtful characterizations and the slow burn buildup of the town, especially the church, only to be hit with moments of unsettling jaggedness. There’s an explosiveness to the revelations that we’re given; Bieker shows both great timing and great restraint with regards to how (and how often) she drops those narrative bombshells.

It’s also a heartbreaking portrait of how the relationships between mothers and daughters can go awry, souring due to reasons both large and small. Lacey’s lack of connection – and her striving to find ways to create one – drives her in unanticipated ways. It’s her search to be made truly whole that ultimately allows her the strength to make the break she seeks to make.

Cult fiction can feel exploitative, sensationalized and/or overwrought. The nature of the beast invites over the top treatment. “Godshot” largely avoids this; even in its more lurid moments, there’s an honesty of storytelling that keeps us from tipping over the edge into gratuitousness. Really, that’s another tip of the cap to Bieker. She finds a way to delve deeply into the cultist mindset; through Lacey’s eyes, we get to see not only the inflamed faith of the true believer, but also the painful perspective that comes with burgeoning doubt. Trapped between two worlds, Lacey is both and neither, a sadly spiderwebbed window offering a fractured view in either direction. The result is a jagged and raw look at a young woman forced to deal with the world despite never being given the tools to understand it.

“Godshot” is an engaging exploration of the complexities and contradictions that often accompany unquestioning faith, delving into just how desperate the measures are that can come with desperate times. Challenging and occasionally unsettling, it’s a book filled with striking moments that will likely linger in your memory long after you put it down.

4.5 STARS

"Life was pain and this was mine. Was it more or less than anyone else's?" - Godshot.

SYNOPSIS: Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it’s an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret “assignments,” to bring the rain everybody is praying for.

Lacey has no reason to doubt the pastor. But then her life explodes in a single unimaginable act of abandonment: her mother, exiled from the community for her sins, leaves Lacey and runs off with a man she barely knows. Abandoned and distraught, Lacey May moves in with her widowed grandma, Cherry, who is more concerned with her taxidermy mice collection than her own granddaughter. As Lacey May endures the increasingly appalling acts of men who want to write all the rules, and begins to uncover the full extent of Pastor Vern’s shocking plan to bring fertility back to the land, she decides she must go on a quest to find her mother, no matter what it takes. With her only guidance coming from the romance novels she reads and the unlikely companionship of the women who knew her mother, she must find her own way through unthinkable circumstances. - Godshot.

REVIEW: Thank you so much to NetGalley, Catapult, and Chelsea Bieker for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am so happy I received this book because once I read the synopsis I knew it would be a story that I would love. This is a book about Lacey May and her journey in life. Having a rough childhood, Lacey and her mother are saved and join into a cult led by pastor Vern. The book follows Lacey and her mother's life in the cult which is settled in a town plagued by drought and the absence of rain. The story is heartbreaking and page-turning. I don't think there was one moment of it that I didn't love or wasn't interested in. The story, although fictional, seemed so real and almost like something that has really happened. I could feel for all the characters, their troubles, and heartbreaks.

The characters of this book were amazing and not like any I have read before. From the beginning, I fell in love with Lacey May and was very invested in her story. In the book, she battles a lot between her head and her heart and also her religion versus her freedom. This makes for some very interesting thoughts and considerations in my opinion. The other characters in the book were also very memorable in their own ways. Most of them were seemingly "normal" people who were fanatics about their religion but also had some sort of quirk about them. I thought that each character was well thought out, and played significant roles in the story, even helping to set the tone and the overall setting of the town of Peaches.

This book felt so deep to me and raised a lot of feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Also, as I mentioned it seemed so real in a way, something not entirely fiction. After finishing the book, I went to the author's social media page and found a piece she wrote about the book and the connecting themes between the novel and her personal life. I will post the link here because I think it adds to the story, but I would suggest reading it only AFTER you have read the book. You can find her piece here: https://lithub.com/motherloss-that-thing-you-cannot-escape/.

Overall, I am so glad that I picked up this book and know that I will read it again in the future. In fact, I plan to also purchase a physical copy so I can have it in my collection. I would recommend this book to others. I would recommend this to anyone who likes emotional, character-driven stories. Or honestly, anyone who is interested in cults, religious sects, and the power and loss of relationships. I am already looking forward to reading whatever Chelsea Bieker puts out next.

"I don't mean beautiful like you're thinking. I mean beautiful. I mean, deep and changed. Affected. Wise. When you see a woman like that, you know. She's beautiful because of her undoing. Beautiful because she rebirthed herself from ashes."- Godshot.

This will undoubtedly be one of my favorite reads of 2020 - and its only April! To call it the story of a young woman navigating life in a Californian cult only scratches the surface of what lies between the pages of Godshot. I fell in love with Bieker's characters from the first page, and found myself feeling the overwhelming intrigue and joy I got from my time reading Swamplandia! (which tbh is also one of the best books of all time). Highly recommend.

“Whatever’s happened to you can either make you beautiful, or it will ruin you forever. You decide.”

“I’m not beautiful.”

“I don’t mean beautiful like you’re thinking. I mean beautiful. I mean, deep and changed. Affected. Wise. When you see a woman like that, you know. She’s beautiful because of her undoing. Beautiful because she rebirthed herself from ashes.”



Godshot was exactly the kind of book I needed in my life right now. My dearest goodreads buddy Elyse recommended it and mentioned it was still up on Net Galley and I’m so grateful both that I jumped on, and that Catapult Press was so kind to approve my Net Galley request after publication. They must have known the book was so good I’d want to rush out and buy a copy!

I was hooked from the first chapter and immediately ran to my bookstagram account proclaiming “Into weird religious cults? California? Coming of age stories with unique, strong women? Just looking for a book that will make you shout “OMG!” and flip out within the first chapter? This is the book for you!” And truly, I can do little better than that original excited summary. When Elyse told me about the book she was bubbling over wanting to talk about it but wouldn’t tell me a whole lot and urged me to jump in without reading reviews. I agree with that. Though if you need a review to sell you, spoiler free, let’s talk about all the things I loved about this book.

Like many of us, I’ve always been fascinated by cults. I think it’s only natural to want to understand how people get drawn in and to think it couldn’t happen to us. While this book is fiction (and my goodness once you finish, you’ll be glad for that!) I think Chelsea Bieker does a really amazing job at examining that angle- what draws a person or a family into a cult? What does it take for someone to start to question things? If your entire life is wrapped up and connected to the cult, or like in this story, most of your entire town follows it, what would it take to try to escape? Could you escape?

Then I mentioned California. I found this book to be so completely absorbing and transportive. There’s a lot of reasons for that, top notch writing, intriguing characters, but a big factor is the way Bieker brings a draught-striken small farming community just north of Fresno, to life. She describes sweltering heat, the dust, the way the smog collects over the valley and obscured the mountains beyond it so that they become little more than a memory or fantasy from the days so long ago when the rain would clear the air and remind the town’s inhabitants that they’ve been there all along. There’s the brown water coming from faucets, the forbidden luxury that a shower or even drink of water from the tap becomes, and the desolate landscape of what had been the raisin capital of the country. The California setting is as vivid and real and as much a part of the story as the characters themselves. I’m all the way over on the cool, wet shores of Lake Michigan but I felt that heat and the thirst when I read, saw the dusty, dry landscape around me.

Next we have the characters themselves. While the cult is lead by a man who thinks himself akin to Jesus (stating even that Jesus is tired, to let him rest and passing out ever present green bibles that bear his name hundreds of times) and there are plenty of men in the town and congregation, this is most of all a story about women and the way women so often shoulder the heaviest burden in life, something that is true of these women in their lives both before and while in the cult. The main focus is on 14 year old Lacey May, but it’s a generational tale, with her mother and grandmother being integral parts of the story, and so many other women playing roles as both torturer and savior and all the many grey areas in between. The women in this book are all strong in their own ways too, and I loved the way Bieker was able to show this with so much diversity, with so many nuanced and often flawed ways. Looking back, that’s one thing that stands out, that even the women who are the most taken in, are not just blind followers and they each show strength in their own ways. There’s also some really cool more traditionally feminist things that happen in this book, some powerful scenes that I can’t detail without it being spoilers but that I found very special, maybe particularly because those scenes are such a salve to the intense and harsh patriarchy of the cult. This is a painful, rough ride but a mighty empowering read as well.

There’s also a lot here about mothers and daughters, about longing for an unconditional love from a parent who is unable to give it, but finding the strength and love inside one’s self to carry on despite the pain. I loved how real and relatable these aspects were and how as much as women often hurt other women, we always protect, empower, and stand with one another too. What love and nurturing Lacey doesn’t get at home she finds along the way. I think patriarchal society plays as much a role in the ways we as women let other women down, hurt one another, but we see this as well as the other side, the way that we are all sisters in our battles and can strengthen and help one another too. Sometimes we do a little of both at the same time too. This book nails all of the complexities here. And it’s so feminist and empowering without being heavy handed or preachy. It’s absolutely powerful storytelling with so much that is experienced as much as said in reading it.

I needed this book right now. It stands amongst three really remarkable books I’ve read in the last six weeks of the whole world being topsy turvy. I’m going to list the other two because I think they bear a lot of similarities while all also being their own very unique and worthwhile stories. First, there is 142 Ostriches by April Davila, another book with a California setting, a family and farming setting, and then Misconduct of the Heart by Canadian author Cordelia Strube which takes part in a suburban section of Toronto but has an intimate kind of small town feel like Ostriches and Godshot, it shares a lot of similar themes but from an older woman than the one here in Godshot. Each of these books has done for me things that I think I will be feeling for years to come, have shaped me as a woman and a feminist. If you liked this book, you’ll probably like these other two and vice versa and they all are some of the most incredible, nuanced and complex tales of women finding themselves and their own strength. Each has stood so far and above the many, many books I’ve been reading.

I am downright grateful for Godshot. But even if you’re not having your own sort of feminist coming of age or coming of power as I seem to be, I can’t imagine you’d be disappointed. Now more than ever we all need books that take us away, take us deep inside them, shape us, and perhaps bring special gifts to our souls. This was one of those absolute pleasures of a book that reminds me why I love reading and what books can do for the reader. I’ve struggled like so many of us to stay focused or to finish half the books I’ve started since sheltering in place. This book was a rare and special exception. I hope it serves the same purpose for many more readers.

4.25 stars

"Be filled with gratitude, ladies. You've been Godshot."

On the surface, Godshot appears to be about a cult. While the cult is a huge part of the storyline, this is really a book about mothers and daughters, loneliness, friendship, and love.

14-year-old Lacey May Herd is a true believer in GOTS, a religious cult located in Peaches, California. Peaches, once a thriving agricultural town known as “the Raisin Capital of the World,” is now barren, the land is dry, the crops are dead, the water is gone, and its residents are fleeing. But those who have stayed believe there is still hope that Vern, the leader of GOTS, will bring the rain back to Peaches.

When Lacey May’s mother is excommunicated from the cult, she abandons her daughter. Forced to live with her eccentric grandmother, who cares more about the cult and her “stuffed pets,” than her granddaughter's well-being, Lacey May struggles to find her place. When she becomes a prime member of Vern’s divine plan to make it rain, she is forced to face a brutal series of realities causing her to question all that she believed in.

I was really moved by Godshot. This is a dark and compelling read that focuses on gender roles, religion, faith, sexuality, sexual assault, and motherhood. I struggled a bit with Bieker’s writing style a little in the beginning, but once I got used to the cadence, I was completely enthralled and found myself transported to another world filled with quirky, fascinating characters.

There are a lot of vile characters featured in this book, but characters like Lacey May, Florin, and Daisy shined some light on the darkness. It was easy to root for Lacey May, especially when her circumstances go from bad to worse to horrendous to hopeful. She is very much a child, but at the same time, wise beyond her years. Her relationship with her mother is heartbreaking to read. There are some very difficult parts of this book to read, especially scenes involving rape and incest. The final sentences left me teary-eyed, yet hopeful for Lacey May

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher.

With comparisons to "White Oleander" (which is one of my favorite books from years back) I was looking forward to reading "Godshot", and boy this book did not disappoint! I can definitely see the parallels to "White Oleander in the themes of mothers and daughter relationships and the cult that the town that the main character Lacey is growing up in, is enthralled and lead by. In the end it is a well told coming of age story for Lacey who finds the place that is right for her in the world.

Oh, my gosh, this is one of the books in the memes that show what your face looks like when you discover the meaning of the title. I hesitate to say too much about this book about a cult religious leader who has a following in a California farming town that used to be known for its raisins. Since the drought, though, everything, even the people have dried up. They were ripe for some charismatic faith healer who has rewritten himself into the Bible, but where he leds them is shocking and I think other readers will be as surprised as I am that a phone sex business owner turns out to have the most morals and care the most for a young pregnant girl.

This book will grab you from the very first sentence and not let go!

Lacey May is fourteen years old. She is desperate to become a woman and be recognized for her faith, so she tells the leader of the cult she and her mom are involved with a secret that we mother wanted her to keep.

Their little California community is suffering through a drought and the leader of the cult they are involved in believes he can fix that with his special powers.

It's a powerful book that I could not put down!!

Please read the Author's Note at the end of the book!

Thank you netgalley and Ms. Bieker for the opportunity

Alcoholism, cult, flawed relationships. Desperate for hope in the states of environmental crisis

Although some events left me questioning overall very thorough read and wonderful debut

Godshot by Chelsea Bieker is a heartbreaking novel about a girl coming of age and trying to find her mother. I really loved the descriptive imagery that gave this book an ethereal quality. I especially loved that a-ha moment in the book when you discover the meaning of the title. I think Bieker is a talented writer and I can’t wait to read her next book.

Lacey May and her mother live in Peaches, California which was once a prosperous town known as the “raisin capital of the world”. The future is now very uncertain after a prolonged drought and those who remain rely upon the guidance of Pastor Vern. The townspeople believe that the rain will return if they obey his rules and complete his assignments.

Lacey’s alcoholic mother is thrown out of town for not obeying Pastor Vern’s rules. Lacey is left to live with her grandmother and the location of her mother is kept a secret. She becomes obsessed with finding her mother and is soon selected for a horrible assignment. Lacey has serious choices to make and begins to question Pastor Vern and her membership in the community.

Godshot by Chelsea Bieker is a debut novel. This book hits Suzy’s sweet spot with a combination of a dark environment, gritty characters, and all the emotions of family bonds. I look forward to more books from this author in the future.