What I was reading repulsed me but I could not put down Chelsea Bieker's debut novel Godshot. Lacey's narrative voice drew me in, her conflicted nativity and faith struggling to survive as her family and community fails to protect her. The novel reaches into the deepest questions of life and illustrates the limitations of love and faith.

The tragic series of events and abuse endured will be hard for some to follow; this is a dark story. But just when it seems that Lacey has lost everything, including control over her own life, she finds salvation.

Drought has hit the town of Peaches, the orchards turned to dust. Pastor Vern finds the community ripe for hope and promises to deliver rain if they believe in him. Isolating the community from the world, believers allow him total control.

Pastor Vern brings good to some. Lacey's mother found strength to overcome her alcoholism. Pastor Vern also destroys as he wields his total power. His plan to create a perfected church involves assignments, special purposes that believers long to be given. They want to be Godshot. Lacey's mother's assignment takes her on a downward spiral until she abandons Lacey to run off with a man filled with false promises.

Lacey is taken in by her grandmother, one of Pastor Vern's unthinking believers. Lacey desperately misses her mother and endeavors to track her down, her search to learn taking her into the world beyond the Godshot.

Lacey's assignment begins her journey of doubt. Would God require such things?

The novel touches on so many hot-button issues relating to the social status and role of women, the persistence of human hope placed in unreliable leaders, the love of a child for her mother, and the awakening of a young woman to see beyond her communities teachings.

Lacey's journey from darkness into light, from powerlessness to self-determination comes to a satisfying conclusion.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

This story of a fourteen year old girl, whose mother involved her in a religious cult, is realistic and heartbreaking. Lacey is sharp and can think pretty well for herself. She realizes her mother’s drunken behavior is wrong. This is one of those sad times, when the child must become the adult as Lacey tries her best to protect her mother from herself.

Ultimately, Lacey’s mother takes off with a stranger and Lacey is left with her weird grandmother. And while Lacey is smart girl, she seems to believe that obeying the creepy cult leader is a good thing. While he is busy coming up with “assignments” for his followers to carry out, Lacey is actually excited about, and looking forward to, receiving her assignment.

Due to the grim subject matter, Godshot was a difficult read for me. If not for the author’s expertise in dealing with the serious subject matter of feminist issues, including with the oppression and appalling violation of women, I may not have made it through this expertly written story.

This is very good, and the many existing reviews will tell you as much. So I'll just recommend it to literary fiction fans.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

An extraordinary debut that is both gritty and compassionate. Bieker evokes the terrible ravished beauty of the Central Valley so vivdly you can feel the sun bake your skin, and characters are fresh and nuanced. It's also so much more than a coming-of-age story, with themes of pseudo-religion, partiarchy, motherhood, and human longing. It's unsettling and gorgeous; just read it!

This was an enjoyable but tough read. It's hard to imagine such a young girl living in such awful circumstances and going through what young Lacey May did. The first part of this book dragged a little bit for me and I had a hard time really getting into it but I am so glad I stuck to it. I loved the character development, watching certain relationships grow, watching Lacey May start to come into her own thinking and certain people get what was coming to them.. A great story about how family is more than just blood. How we can't always make people be what we want and/or need them to be. Definitely recommend!

Loved this book! Wow when I first read the blurb I knew I’d be able to relate- growing up in a strict religion with cooky ways and values I kept shaking my head like omg I know what she’s talking about! This book had me laughing and crying and not wanting it to end! Female power to the core!

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. This book totally gave me White Oleander vibes, which is one of my favorite books of all time. I really enjoyed this book about Lacey and her mother in small town Peaches, California and the "desperate" times that fall on them that lead them into a cult. I love it. Definitely recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I give Godshot 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because it is beautifully written. However, it was very slow in the beginning. I found it somewhat difficult to get into the story but kept reading because I thought it had potential. At times, the subject matter is difficult to read. My heart breaks for Lacey who has been let down by anyone and everyone she's ever met. This book is especially heartbreaking for me as a mother of two young girls. I can't ever imagine them having to go through anything even remotely close to what Lacey went through.

Overall, it is worth the read if you can get past the first quarter of the book.

What a painful and yet somehow hopeful read. I'll admit, it took a while for me to get into this one. The beginning seemed to stretch on forever but once it picked up I couldn't put it down. I adore the friendships in this book and the exploration of what motherhood means. At times my heart felt raw reading this but I'd highly recommend it.

The people suffering from a severe drought in the small town of Peaches in California's central valley are the perfect victims for cult leader Pastor Vern who promises to bring the rain if everyone obeys him and carries out their "assignments." 14-year-old Lacey, abandoned by her mother, wavers between subservience and rebellion--especially after is made to carry out her own "assignment."
This was a well-written, engrossing and quite disturbing picture of a cult life and manipulation of women.

"Godshot" was a tough, emotional and twist turning novel. I had no idea this was Chelsea Biekers debut novel. Phenomenal is all I can say.
Peaches, California is suffering a serious drought and the locals are following cult leader, Vern, who promises through "secret assignments", that rain is coming!
Lacy May is a 14 yr old girl, who's alcoholic mother has left her for a stranger, promising to make her a star. Lacy goes and stays with her bizarre grandmother, Cherry.
Revenge, redemption, and forgiveness in this gripping read!

Thank you to author, publisher and NetGalley for the eARC

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy! A HUGE reason I found this book hard to get into was because the formatting was the worst I’ve seen of any book on NetGalley. Truly awful.

This was a tough read. I really had to slow down my reading of it because it was just awful circumstance after awful circumstance for our main character. It was hard to read. The last third was beautiful. I struggled with getting into it. I think it was a touch too unrealistic in some parts which kept me from getting sucked in right away. I think a lot of people will pick this up thinking it’s a story about a whacky religious cult, which it is, but more than that, it’s about the myriad ways society and humans can torture women. And this book is full of torture. Each woman in this story has a unique “situation” demonstrating this. I enjoyed the ending of this book so so so much that I gave it the 3 stars, but if not for that I would’ve rated lower because the awfulness seemed gratuitous at times. Phew, the world for women is bad enough in reality and this imagining was maybe too much.

Loved this book! Wow when I first read the blurb I knew I’d be able to relate- growing up in a strict religion with cooky ways and values I kept shaking my head like omg I know what she’s talking about! This book had me laughing and crying and not wanting it to end! Female power to the core!
Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced ebook copy! Put this on your TBR!!!

I'm not even sure what to say about this heart-wrenching debut! It's taken me days to collect my thoughts. When Lacey May's alcoholic mother leaves her for a stranger who promises to make her a star, fourteen-year-old Lacey goes to live with her eccentric grandmother Cherry who is obsessed with dressing her collection of rodents. Peaches, California is experiencing a drought, but fortunately Pastor Vern has guaranteed his congregation that he can produce rain as long as they follow his orders. As the readers, we recognize the hallmarks of this cult as it becomes horrifyingly clear that Vern has his own agenda and his people are blind to the plan. And this is only the beginning! So much more takes place as Bieker addresses multiple themes of empowerment, feminism, loss, motherhood, redemption, and forgiveness (just to name a few). The writing is poignant and there is both joy and pathos in the storyline. It may be unlike anything you've ever read before, but it will certainly keep you thinking deeply about concepts and people you care about!

The story was fast-paced and the characters endearing. The plot isn’t new - cult-leader, pregnancy, small town creepiness - but it does have a freshness to it that I found endearing by the middle of the novel. I did love the New Agey touches that felt of the current times, but also timeless in a way. A solid read.

I've heard amazing things about this book which tells me it's wonderful for the right kind of reader but this was just too much for my sensitive and blood-fearing soul. I couldn't get past the first few chapters; the cringe factor was too high.

4.5 stars. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars was because the ending felt slightly rushed. Otherwise, I thought the writing, pacing, and character development were all great. I will definitely be recommending this title to friends, family, and patrons.

Compelling? Yes, but that isn't the thing...Devastating? Also yes, but still no...Difficult, in some ways, but worth it in every way. Lovely, if sweaty.

Bieker has created a dark novel, that unfortunately bears many elements of truth, separating it from dystopian novels covering bleak ecological and personal subject matters. This novel takes place in California, in a small, drought-infested town, where the locals worship Vern, a sexual predator low life, who tells his followers he will provide them with rain after they follow his requests. The novel isn't as surprising as one would hope since we live in a world of men taking advantage of women.

In this novel, our 14 year old main character, Lacy, struggles to be a good follower of Vern and a good daughter to her mother, who struggles with alcoholism and fighting off Vern, who wants her as his sex slave. Vern tells the teenaged boys to impregnate the girls after they have their periods, hoping all the babies will be born on the same day, the day the miraculous rain will appear. Bleak shit. No rain. Lost youth.

Fortunately, there are a few "upbeat" characters in the novel. The spiritual midwives are useful. There are a mother/daughter (phone sex workers) team that basically rescue Lacy. It's unfortunate that the characters find Ina Mae Gaskin's book at the library but not Margaret Atwood's because there is a certain Handmaid's Tale to this hand over your babies after they are born novel. Basically this is a novel about Lacy trying to fit in and to stay connected to her mother, who drifts off into her head, until she is physically removed, and her search to be reconnected to her mother before she becomes a mother herself. At least this dark novel ends on an upbeat note where being a woman doesn't mean being abused all the damn time.

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

3.5 stars rounded up for Chelsea Bieker’s debut novel “Godshot”. It was slow-moving, but profoundly deep, stunning and at times, heavy.

Picture this; our main character, Lacey May, and a church cult, living in a dry, desert wasteland which was once home to a thriving community and fruitful raisin farms. In their time of drought and desperation, they have turned to Pastor Vern, their creepy cult leader, to help restore the rains to their land. Lacey May endures increasingly horrific acts at the hands of various church members in the name of God. Fed up and alone, she sets out on a quest to find her alcoholic mother. But the truths she discovers about her family, her town and their beloved Pastor are far more devastating than she can imagine.

For a thought-provoking story that deals with themes of motherhood, loss, faith, and resilience... pick up Godshot. I do want to say this book for mature audiences only and while it is tough to handle at parts, I think that makes it’s messages all the more worthwhile.

I also want to include trigger warnings here for: rape, child abuse and endangerment and alcoholism.