Despite the appearance of a tornado, this is what I would describe as a nice, quiet novel. In fact, the tornado doesn’t actually show up until the end of the book and is the only real “action” in the common sense of the word. However, it wasn’t the tornado that kept me reading anyway.

Everyone Dies Famous is interesting despite the lack of “action”. The author is well able to keep the reader hooked as he unravels each character for us. Despite the book having quite a few main characters, there was good character development for each. And, through these characters, we experience the pain of life’s hardships, the struggle of moving past our mistakes, and feelings of hopefulness and disappointment. As an added bonus, the author also does a wonderful job setting the atmosphere of laid-back Maple Springs.

I was surprised to find out after reading Everyone Dies Famous that it is a sequel. I certainly didn’t feel lacking from not having read the first book.

When I read this story I was unaware that there had been a previous book about these characters but it didn’t spoil the enjoyment of this story. The story begins at the end after tragedy has struck the small town of Maple Springs, then drops back to fill in the pieces. The story centres around Dancer Stonemason and the events that brought him back to this town and how his decisions that day change the course of other peoples lives as the day goes on.

I liked the laidback pace of the town and getting to know the people. It is weird because knowing at the beginning of the story that some people die feels terribly sad but at that point, I didn’t know those people, by the end I do and the feelings are so much deeper. The author brings this town to life, the way they live, the pace and the hidden hurts that have festered for years because of lack of communication. The things that matter in life.

The author created a perfect atmospheric build-up throughout the book, with the last few chapters being both intense with the characters and the elements. It certainly brought out true heroes and heart in my mouth moments.

If there were any lessons to be learned by this book it is never to take anything or anyone for granted, because you never know if you will see that person again.

I wish to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

In Maple Springs, Missouri some people live in their past glories, trying their best to adapt to the future. This is a purely character driven novel about regret and redemption, with a heart for veterans. Joy is a talented writer, most of the character driven, emotional novels move slowly; but not this one. I read it in two days!

Thank you BQB publishing, Netgalley and Len Joy for the arc. This is my own opinion.

An enormously powerful tornado approaches Maple Springs, Missouri in July 2003, ready to roil the lives of everyone in the small town. What Mother Nature doesn’t know is that existing in this dying southern town is so miserable that some residents might find total destruction an appealing prospect.

Dancer Stonemason, the town’s failed hero, is reluctantly shutting down his son Clayton’s business, the one in which they’d harmoniously worked together for a decade. But Clayton died several months earlier in a single-vehicle crash, leaving Dancer with unremitting grief and the remnants of what seemed like a promising vocation.

Wayne Mesirow’s National Guard unit has just returned from Iraq, and he’s still struggling with the death of his best friend, Sanjay, better known as Sonny, who drowned in the Tigris River during a construction project. It doesn’t help that his wife, Anita, is divorcing him as part of a self-improvement plan that includes breast implants, tight clothes, and a rich new boyfriend twice her age. Nor does he achieve the peace and forgiveness he seeks from Sonny’s father — Madman Patel, the Electronics King of Joplin — who hurls insults and physically attacks him in the middle of a new store while violently rejecting Wayne’s clumsy effort to present Sonny’s Sig Sauer as a final gift. His last hope is joining the locally renowned band that recruited him just before he shipped off to Iraq, unwilling to trade his dream of rock stardom for a humdrum life in an everyday job.

Jim Stonemason, Dancer’s ever-dependable and successful auto dealership owner son, holds on tightly to the biggest secret and honor of his career, as well as the belief that his father never valued him as much as his late brother. He plans to put his daughter and best salesperson, Kayla, in charge of the project, but has no idea she and her accountant fiancé, Barry, have decidedly different plans.

Ted Landis’ mission in life is to ruin what little is left of Maple Springs’ downtown. After building a mall on its outskirts ironically named after his late ex-wife, whose legacy was her affair with Dancer Stonemason’s wife, he now pursues Anita Mesirow as his latest trophy, the arm candy to escort through his finest development, a steamboat casino and upscale resort on the Caledonia River that will rival the Redneck Riviera and turn Howell County, Missouri into a luxury vacation destination.

On the night that Landis plans to debut his resort, a squall that was predicted to veer away from the town turns into a thunderstorm spawning a monstrous tornado onto Maple Springs. Some will find new strength and inspiration in its cyclical destruction, while others find the freedom to let go of the burden of survival. The whirling winds alter nearly everything in town, and when the twister finally passes, life — and lives — are changed beyond recognition, with the line between existence and exit blurred beyond recognition.

Absolutely brilliant story about uncommon lives of everyday people. A purely character-driven story that blows your mind! Len Joy's storytelling is marvelous, keeps the reader hooked on to the story until the end. Highly recommended!

This skillfully written story about the choices made by people in the heartland and the aftermath is a great read. The characters are well-developed and the story moves at the perfect pace.

Len Joy's novel illuminates life and death in a small town.

Len Joy', an award-winning author and nationally ranked triathlete, newest novel, Everyone Dies Famous draws on the cherished tradition of small-town literature. The novel is set in Maple Springs, Missouri, a river community where everybody knows each other. Here, lives overlap, circle, and collide daily.

Like every small town, a diverse cast of characters walks the streets. Wayne Mesirow is a depressed veteran of the Iraqi War who returns to Maple Springs to find his marriage disintegrating. Dancer Stonemason was once a hometown hero but returns home, diminished and disgraced, dealing with the death of Clayton, his oldest son. As we read, we connect the dots and define the relationships that exist between people who’ve lived in a town for decades. An ambitious car dealership owner, a wealthy land developer, two women weaving baskets by the river, and a dog still mourning the loss of his owner are just a few of the characters we encounter as we turn the pages.

Two themes move the story along in undercurrents as powerful as the river that flows by the town. Grief is present for everyone, whether it is in the death of Clayton Stonemason, the death of dreams, or the death of love. Each character faces that sorrow differently — and sometimes unexpectedly — giving insight to the universal experience of what it means to mourn.

The second theme moving through the book depicts the conflicting goals of the people in town. As in any community, everyone’s idea of what they want to accomplish is different from the next person’s. That’s where the conflict begins. Does a brother honor his dead brother’s dreams? Does a daughter do what her father wants her to do? Does the ambition of a land developer obliterate the hope of a town revitalizing Main Street? Do husbands and wives have the same goals and ambitions? Not in Maple Springs, Missouri, or anywhere else in the world.

Len Joy is a master at pacing, and he moves us along — urging us to turn the pages faster and faster. Each short chapter is time-stamped, and the action takes place in an intense fourteen hours, increasing with the building of a massive storm front. As the characters’ emotions intensify, so does the weather.

Len Joy creates a tight circle with his novel, tying the end back to the beginning. It starts with a Prologue that in an ironic twist of the term “Prologue” focuses on the end of the book, and we begin to understand the devastation — and the redemption — of living in a small town.

I guess we’re all voyeurs. Getting intimate glimpses into the back-stories, the motivations, the situations that define people, has always been a popular form of literature.

Consider the classic Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Or the Pulitzer Prize Winner of 2009, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Leif Enger’s Virgil Wander is a poignant depiction of small-town life, and I am slavishly devoted to the people of Three Pines, the fictional village of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series, where each character feels like my personal friend.

Everyone Dies Famous fits into the long-standing tradition of small-town literature. Read it if you’ve got a heart for veterans. If you live in a city and have dreamed about escaping to small-town life, or if you live in a small town and want to recognize people you know. Gain insight by watching ordinary people interact after decades of “knowing” each other.

Hunker down and weather the storm of human emotions in Everyone Dies Famous, where the problems are similar to yours and the people are people you know — no matter where you live.

An interesting story that traces a rather dysfunctional family through the years. There are flashbacks and it all culminates in a way you don’t expect