This book contains all of my favorite book elements: a dysfunctional family, set in the past in a Southern town, and DRAMA. This book was so many things, but I will settle on calling it very moving. I was swept away in the story of this family and enjoyed the various POVs presented. The narrator of the audiobook was also wonderful and helped bring the story to life. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Set in Charlotte, NC, during the Viet Nam years, the French family is as dysfunctional as it gets. Dad is a cop, alcoholic mom is trying to cope with the death of one son, the addiction and disgrace of his twin, Jason, and the strain of keeping the youngest, Gibby, on track. And then there is the supervillain X, condemned to death yet lurking in a private wing of the state prison pulling strings of evil incarnate, through several minions including the super evil Reece, and somehow linked to Jason.

While Hart is a consummate story teller, this one suffers from too many viewpoints. Gibby, a rebellious teen making poor decisions while trying to maintain connections with both his living and dead brothers, tells his part of the story as a first person narrative. We get to know Gibby. But Hart also inhabits the heads of numerous additional characters, opening the plot without actually inviting the listener fully into motivations of most, with the exception of Reece, who is over the top scary. The story is raw--the effects of war on ordinary people, the closed environments of law enforcement, Charlotte's biking scene, and prison, with crime lurking at the edges of civilized life. Very violent at times, with Gibby and his friends at serious risk.

Narrator Kevin Stillwell provided a top notch performance, distinguishing the characters easily through multiple viewpoint changes and moving the story with skillful pacing.

Hart does it again! Another engaging story full of grit and suspense. I will even admit to shedding a few tears at the end, which was completely unexpected.

Jason is a hardened war vet who returned from Vietnam with a heroin addiction. He has just finished a stint in jail. When Jason shows up in his hometown unexpectedly, His mom doesn't want him around for fear of corrupting his younger brother Gibby. His dad, a senior police officer, is suspicious about why he's back. After spending an afternoon partying with Gibby and two women, Jason becomes a suspect when one of the women is murdered. Gibby gets pulled into his brother's criminal life when he tries to prove his innocence.

I listened to the audio and thought the performance was solid. It was one of those books that hooked me from the start and kept my interest. It includes some details about Vietnam warm, which I found interesting. My only criticism was that the characters were stereotypical and somewhat predictable. A book worth reading if you enjoy crime thrillers.

A gracious thank you to publisher and NG for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

John Hart is one of the greatest storytellers of our time. I have every one of his books. This book is a hell of a story and is multi-faceted. While it does have a war story as an undertone, it's much more than that. It's a story of family, resilience, self-discovery. His characters are rich and you really feel connected with them. THE UNWILLING is among his best work so far.

The following review was posted to Goodreads:

Special thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.  


Consider my mind blown and my heartstrings tugged!  This was my first book by John Hart and it was an absolute winner!  


 Gibby, a young man just turned 18, is facing graduation and the prospect of college at the height of the Vietnam war.  His brothers have already served; only one made it home alive.  Jason, now hardened by war and time in prison, is hoping to rekindle their brotherly bond.  Jason and Gibby spend an afternoon bonding over whiskey and older women, only to come face to face with a prison transport bus; the same prison that Jason just recently left behind.  A riot ensues on the bus when one of the women crudely taunts the prisoners.  When the woman is found brutally murdered, Jason becomes the likely suspect.  But things aren't always what they seem.



The characters within this broken family were probably my favorite part of this book.  I truly feel for Gibby.  He is overly protected, not without reason, by his parents who have lost one son to death and one to crime and the scars left behind by war.  Gibby knows he has been sheltered and struggles to come to terms with his life's complete lack of risk.  He is heading off to college and safe from the draft.  His friend, Chance, won't be so lucky.  Gibby's main goal since Jason's return is to salvage whatever relationship he can have with his remaining brother and also proving himself.  In the end, he accomplishes both. Jason is simply a heartbreaking character.  He's the obvious bad boy on the surface but it's the turmoil writhing beneath that gives his character amazing depth. The villains in this book though, they just don't work.  Interesting characters with interesting stories but overall, they are just too unrealistic.  Not so much so that they "ruin" the story.  They just add a vast amount of improbability to and otherwise pragmatic story.  


As this was an audiobook, it is only fair that I offer some insight into the performance of the book.  For one, Kevin Stillwell, the narrator was good.  Not great, not exceptional, but good.  He didn't offer a range of voices for the characters which made them difficult to discern at times, especially the book's three main perspectives: Gibby, Jason, and Bill French.  The other downfall was the pace of the scene shifts.  Typically in an audiobook, there is a clear and lengthy pause between scenes.  It gives the listener some time to adjust when the book is told from multiple perspectives.  This was seriously lacking in this audiobook.  If there was a chapter where Jason, Gibby and Bill were each telling their parts of the story, the narrator quickly moved from one paragraph to the next without pause.  A lack in range between the "voices" made it nearly impossible to tell who was speaking until aspects of the story would tell you.  It was somewhat disruptive and made me feel off balance several times.  


I would definitely read this book again and recommend it for fans of suspense.

This story takes place near my hometown, therefore I was offended by the fake southern accents in the story. The narrator would have done better to use his speaking voice instead of trying to imitate characters. As for the story, it was a very slow moving story and a bit predictable at times.

A good, solid story ruined by narration. Whoever pays narrators should have sprung for multiples. This narrator was not able to pull off the many different characters and his southern accent was terrible! Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I received an advance copy of this audiobook for review and I have to say - this is not a good example of John Hart’s work. Gibby and Jason were typically decent Hart characters, whereas the “bad guys” were unbelievable caricatures, I mean I literally could not believe them as characters. One was an overachieving serial killer billionaire. This was set in 1972, about 10 years before anyone coined the phrase “serial killer” I was annoyed when a character applied the label.

The anachronisms did not stop there. Do you know how many billionaires existed in 1972? Probably you can name them: Howard Hughes, Aristotle Onassis and a Rockefeller. Maybe a Texas oil baron. So pretty unlikely. As unlikely as two characters named Tyra and Chance - whose parents would have given them these very modern names in 1947 and 1954. Again, unlikely. Again, unbelievable. Also unbelievable that Gibby, like a cool 1980s Brooklyn MC, and not a kid from Charlotte would use the phrase “Gibby in the house!” or call his friend “dude” like it was 1982 and not 1972.

I actually kept a list of anachronisms because they were SO distracting. But I’m too tired to type them all. Instead, I’ll say that the editor on this one needs to do some revising. Google some slang origins and baby names. It’s too bad that it’s probably too late to fix the ridiculous plot (I’m looking at you, every single scene in the prison) or the grotesque villains or the motivations of the feckless cops. I’m giving an extra star because there are so many good John Hart-y thoughtful and moments sprinkled throughout and because I thought Jason was a great character who partially overcame his ridiculous surroundings.

The Unwilling is not my first experience with a John Hart novel, and because of that, I thought I knew what to expect from Hart’s writing. But I was wrong. Hart’s novels have always been intense, character-driven thrillers about bad things happening to good people, but this one is Hart on steroids. Admittedly, that feeling of souped-up intensity is partially the result of me having experienced The Unwilling via its audiobook version. Narrator Kevin Stillwell, by altering his voice and accent to fit the book’s various characters, expertly expresses the emotion on the page, but he doesn’t make the mistake that some audiobook readers do by turning a book into more of a personal performance than the reading of someone else’s prose. That can be a fine line to walk, but Stillwell remains firmly planted on the correct side of that line here. Stillwell is not the kind of audiobook narrator who gets in the author’s way; he is the type readers can forget about while enjoying the ride. When it’s all said and done, though, you then realize just how good a job he has done.

The central character of The Unwilling is high school senior Gibby French. Gibby, whose father is a police detective, is the youngest of three brothers. One of his brothers has already died in Vietnam, and the other one came home from the war so emotionally scarred that he earned himself a three-year prison stint. Come June, Gibby and his friends will be facing difficult decisions of their own regarding the horrible war in that faraway country. Jake, fresh out of prison, wants to reconnect with Gibby, but that’s not something his parents want for their youngest son. Jake’s mother, in fact, often refers to Gibby as her “last good son,” and she does not plan to welcome his older brother back into the family at all — end of discussion.
Gibby, though, knows his own mind, and what he wants is to get to know the only brother he has left. If it has to be behind his parents’ backs, so be it.

And then it happens.

On the way home from a day at the lake with their dates, Jake, Gibby, and the girls catch up with a bus full of prisoners being transported back to their cells. Much to Jake’s dismay, his date decides to sexually taunt the prisoners as their car passes the prison bus. When the young woman’s horribly mutilated body is found a few days later, Jake becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Then, a little later, after Gibby’s own date is kidnapped, he joins his brother on the same list of suspects. When it appears to Gibby that even his father has resigned himself to seeing Jake spend the rest of his life in prison, Gibby decides to find the real murderer himself. All he has to work with are his best friend, Chance, the bicycle he rides to school on, a few dollars in his wallet, and a whole lot of determination. Maybe even enough determination to get himself and Chance killed.

Bottom Line: The Unwilling is an experience. Part coming-of-age novel, part family saga, part serial killer thriller, this one also includes my favorite fictional villain since Hannibal Lecter showed up on the scene in the eighties. I’m going to remember The Unwilling for a long, long time.

Review Copy provided by Publisher - Book Available on February 2, 2021

The Unwilling, a Southern gothic coming-of-age story set during the Vietnam War, tells the story of 18 year old Gibby French, on the verge of registering for the draft. He is the youngest child of family . His older brothers, twins Robert and Jason, had already served. Robert came home in a box. Jason came home physically and emotionally damaged with a burgeoning drug addiction and an apparent death wish. When Jason is released from prison, Gibby's parents want one thing: to keep him away from Robert. It doesn't work. Jason dares Gibby to spend the day with him, driving around the countryside and drinking beer in the company of two young woman of Jason's acquaintance. The events of that day lead to an unfolding of unimaginable terrors as Jason and Gibby attempt to confront their problems each in his own way. It's a dark book, so dark that I had to put it down for a couple of days before I could finish it. Highly recommend for fans of gritty story telling.

Sadly, I could not get this to work on my device. It would download and stop at certain parts. It also had an echo effect that I could not get paste to enjoy the story. I tried putting I will not be giving Feedback and getting this removed and it effects your review score (which Netgalley needs to fix).

I will be marking as 3 stars since I do not want to leave a bad review and you cannot leave a review without a rating.

ADDENDUM: I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this novel. I have previously read the book but wanted to hear what the narration was like. I think they did a great job with this book. I was able to feel the emotions, the fear and the danger in this novel. The characters voices sounded relatable to what I had envisioned and were a good fit. For how I felt about the complete novel please see my review of the hard copy book below.

This was an audiobook I received from the publisher through NetGalley.

This is my first book by John Hart and it is a winner!! What I loved about this book was that it was a combination of so many things. It was a thriller, a family drama and a coming of age novel. The story was about the horrors of war and what it can do to a young man. It was also a story of a family fractured by the loss of one son to the war and another who came back from Vietnam psychologically damaged and drug addicted. Their youngest son, Gibby is all they feel they have left and they will do anything to protect him.

The novel is set during the time of the Vietnam war, when young men were being drafted into the Army unless they had a deferment. The family of Detective French has been through a lot. Their oldest son, Robert, was killed in the war previously. The second son, Jason served three years in the war and then a prison sentence. He has been released and their youngest son, Gibby spots him at the local quarry where many high school seniors are enjoying a “senior skip day”, swimming, drinking and socializing. Jason wants to connect with his younger brother and offers a day of adventure and getting to know each other. When Gibby decides to go along with his brother the plot begins it’s twist into some very dark secrets and will include kidnapping, torture and murder.

A young woman is found dead, having been tortured first by someone who must be a very twisted psychopath. With no real leads to the killer the police turn to Jason, who is known to have had a violent history. Gibby will continue to try to prove Jason’s innocence but that path will lead to incredible danger for himself and his best friend Chance.

The story is told from Gibby’s point of view. While all of the drama is playing out with his brother he is discovering his first love, Becky. When they meet there is an immediate chemistry and Becky is there for Gibby when they begin to try to find Jason when he disappears. Their investigation will lead to meeting some very dangerous people, drug dealers, motorcycle gangs and others who will do anything to keep Gibby from discovering some incredible secrets.

I will not describe any more of the plot but will leave you to discover the story for yourself. This book had me from the first page to the last with an incredibly intense ending.

The characters are well defined and I could visualize them and the bonds between the brothers and friends. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a well plotted, intense mystery/drama.

I have been struggling with this book and having a hard time pinpointing why. The writing and the narration are good, but I think the mood was just not the right fit for me at the moment. I have read some other tough-read audiobooks and liked them, but I think it boils down to not being able to immerse myself in a darker mood these days. After several attempts starting and stopping with this book, I will let it be for now, but I would definitely give it another try.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Back in 2006, I was working at Quail Ridge Books, an amazing indie bookstore in Raleigh, NC. I was asked to read an ARC in order to give an introduction for an author who was coming to speak at our store. That book was King of Lies by John Hart, and I was so impressed by that novel and couldn’t believe it was his first. Since then, I’ve read every book John Hart has written, and I can honestly say that he gets better with every book. The Unwilling is filled with unforgettable characters, and the tension doesn’t let up until the very last word, I listened to this one on audio, and I blew through it in just two days because I had to know what happened. The narrator is fantastic, though my only critique is the way he mispronounced Gabrielle’s name for the first few chapters, but he pronounces it correctly after that. Don’t skip the afterword by the author, because I found it so interesting to learn where the idea for this book originated. I highly recommend The Unwilling.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me listen to this advance audio of The Unwilling. by John Hart.

“We the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful.” —Unknown Soldier

This book is a bit too violent and bloody for my taste and I might have put it down if it wasn't for my commitment to read the books I request from Netgalley. I'm glad I stayed until the end. The plot is interesting (though very bloody) and well thought out. The thing that I found the most compelling is how the book, it's descriptions and the length, described better than most books the devastation of war on both the soldier and the family and often the community that the soldier comes home to.
I was a young woman during the Vietnam War and embarrassed to say that I faulted the young men and women who went to fight as well as the US government. Now fifty years later, the psyche of the soldier who fought on the ground in Vietnam, is widely known. Also, well-documented is how the government let these people down (eg. Agent Orange) by not caring for them in any way and covering up mistakes the military made, often forcing a soldier into a lonely, isolated place to fend for himself once he is no longer in the military.

That is what this book tries to detail as best it can. A family with three sons, one already killed in Vietnam, one dishonorably discharged, and the youngest at home, adoring both his brothers and unable to accept what is happening to the second brother, Jason. A mother and father who lost their favorite son, trying to protect the youngest son and feeling hopeless about the middle son whose actions, after being dishonorably discharged, land him in a prison for the most dangerous of men. He's now a drug addict and deals guns to make a living.

There is also life in the prison that Jason had been sent to and for much of the book is 'a guest of' again. Since the descriptions of the soldiers and the family are fairly accurate, I have to trust that Mr. Hart knows prison culture well and what he writes is how it is. It is appalling to the point of unbelievable but maybe only to this naive mind.
Only the love of Gibby, the youngest son, for Jason his unreachable brother saves this family from ending up where so many families ended up after that useless war.

I found the narrator to be a good reader, He was convincing in the many voices he had to read in and one or two really picked up the sinister quality of the speaker.
I really love having books read to me and am very glad Netgalley now has audible books.

This book is high quality and if your stomach can take the violence and the fact that the author does not hold back on any description, I can recommend this book to you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me the opportunity to listen to the audiobook before it is published in exchange for my honest review.

I have been a fan of John Hart since his first novel, The King of Lies. I had the privilege of meeting him in person a couple of times and started his fan club on Facebook.

The Unwilling is a bit different than his other novels. It takes place in the past, during the Vietnam War era. In a word, the book is phenomenal. I especially think if you liked Iron House, you will love The Unwilling. The ending literally gave me cold chills.

There isn't much more I can say that isn't in the synopsis without giving spoilers. 5 solid stars.

This book was a suspense mystery, but it was also a story about brothers. I had not read this author before and I will definitely look at his other work. Part of the reason the book worked so well was because of how he used the setting. This book was set in the early 70's and was very authentic. It was also interesting how the characters were interwined both in the present and the past. I especially liked the relationships in the story. The last quarter of the book was very fast paced and hard to put down. It was very exciting at the end. A recommended read!

The Unwilling, by John Hart, is my first read by this author and I have to say. I am hooked. From beginning to end the author takes the reader on this journey of self-exploration and passionate discovery. The story seems to be told from several points of view, mainly Gibby’s and an all-knowing being. Gibby & Jason French are brothers that you will wish were your very own when you're finished reading this physiological thriller. Don’t skip, don’t skim, read, and re-read, if you are listening, listen again. You will not be disappointed as you cling to hope with characters, your heart racing with their anticipation, the laughs, and the cries that you will share with all those written into this tale of a young boy, who just wanted to help his brother.

I listened to the audio version and read the print copy of The Unwilling. I enjoyed the narrator and his accent and voices, but found the story easier to track and follow in the print version. John Hart’s letter/commentary at the very end was a particularly nice touch. A must read and listen for all fans of family dramas and thrillers!

Thank you to John Hart and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

Look up the military poem The Unwilling and you will find the synopsis you need for yet another fantastic offering from John Hart. Kevin Stillwell narrates and brings an authentic southern touch to the tense and often horrific atmosphere. As a solo narrator, he easily differentiates between characters both male and female. The story is easy to follow with convenient sections to pause until next you are able to listen.
The Vietnam war is raging, sons are being killed, others are coming back damaged, and yet still more boys are being called by both the government and their own free will. The war is a character within the story of a local policeman, Bill French, his son, Jason, returned from war and just released from a 3-year prison stretch, and his remaining son, Gibby. The story is often told through the eyes of Gibby who has seen his family torn apart due to the loss of yet another brother in Vietnam and Jason's fall from grace in his parent's eyes. But, this story is equally about a horrific serial killer on the loose that is connected to Jason. Bodies are piling up in a most gruesome manner, Gibby is intent on both reconnecting to his brother and saving him from the evidence that continues to pile up.
Hannibal Lecter-like characters run amok in this story which is my only negative. Their reach both from within and beyond the prison walls is a little far reaching for me which is why I gave this a 4 star instead of 5 star review. However, the family dynamic and friendships that Gibby has save it all. The listener should be warned, this book gets graphic in its violence.
Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan audio for an early download for review. All opinions are mine.