Wow! I think I just read my favorite book of 2021...so far!! We Begin at the End was a hauntingly beautiful novel. It details the events surrounding Duchess Day Radley. Even though some of the events didn't happen to her directly and may have occurred before she was born, they somehow indirectly impacted her life. Duchess is a teenage girl who is forced to grow up quickly because her mother can't be relied on. Not only does Duchess take care of herself and her younger brother, she often cares for her mother as well. Duchess' mother, Star has never recovered from the death of her younger sister when she was growing up.

Walk is the local chief of police and grew up with Star. He was also good friends with Vincent King. Vincent was Star's boyfriend who went to prison. The events that happened when they were in high school will haunt them forever and impact their lives in ways they can't predict. Walk carries the burden of Vincent's conviction and Star's addictions. He tries to help with Duchess and Robin, but it seems as if he can never do enough.

The story will break your heart in many ways and build you up in others. It is moving and emotional. As I read, I felt emotions that made me reminiscent of Where the Crawdads Sing.. The character, Duchess, experiences so much throughout this story. The evolution of her character from start to finish is staggering.

In addition, I listened to the audiobook and the narration was perfect. The narrator was very talented and made the book even more enjoyable for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the early audio copy. I voluntarily chose to review this audiobook and the opinions contained within are my own.

This is the first book I've read by Whitaker and wow! I love the character development and the progress of the story. I thought the writing was excellent and not everything was tied up neatly.

These characters felt quite real. None of the characters were perfect, even the ones that tries to be. They each struggled with their decisions and had their own battles to fight. Due to this, the story was pretty dark and gritty, much more realistic than some.

I really enjoyed this story and read it in two days. I look forward to reading more of Whitaker's work.

I listened to the audio of this book, narrated by George Newbern. I thought he did an excellent job and was perfect for the story. It was easy to tell his characters apart and although there were a variety of characters (men, women, children), none of them sounded silly. Newbern had just enough variation in his voice to create appropriate character voices regardless of the age or gender he was representing.

My only issue with this story was that the chapters sometimes jumped from one character's perspective to another's without warning. So, while listening your narrator would change and you might not realize it for a sentence or two. You would be immersed in something that was going on with Duchess, then you're suddenly in a scene with Walk. There were times, it felt abrupt and it would take a second or two for my mind to catch up and transition to the other character's storyline. I believe this was more noticeable with the audio, but can't confirm that because I didn't read the physical edition.

Overall, 4.5 stars rounded up, because it really was excellent. I can't wait to see what Whitaker comes out with next.

When I grow up, I want to be Duchess Bradley. She’s a thirteen year old badass outlaw who thinks nothing of taking out a schoolyard bully with a single punch, telling whoever she feels like to turn around and shut the fuck up, and tracking down convicted killers. Without a father in the picture, and a self-destructive mother who can’t be counted on, she’s the parent for her little brother and there’s nothing she won’t do to protect him, even if it’s from herself.
As difficult as Duchess might think her life already is, when the man responsible for the evisceration of her family is released from prison after thirty years, she realizes that her troubles are just beginning.
I found this affecting and arresting. This was the first I’ve read from this author but I intend to check out some of his other books after reading this one.
Thanks to #netgalley and #henryholtandcompany for this ARC of #webeginattheend in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. I went into it knowing very little about it, other than there was some hype around it. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I cared about the characters - I couldn't wait to get back to my audiobook every time I left it. I will definitely be suggesting this one to everyone I know!

Review posted to blog: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend.com/

My Cup Runneth Over and the Tears Spilled.

While reading this book, I was overcome with intense emotion and extraordinary heartbreak.

This is character-driven literary crime fiction about family, friendship, loss, and mystery that includes all of my favorite elements. Dysfunction; grief, heartache; humanity; humor; love; loyalty, pain, regret, and unrelenting tragedy.

It’s a novel that is dripping with heart and that heart resides in the characters. Characters that I love with all of my heart and then some. Characters who I’ve thought about every darn day since I turned the last page.

It’s the characters of Duchess, Robin, Walk, Hal, Dolly, and Martha who bring this book to life and made my heartache.

Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen (13) year-old self-proclaimed “Outlaw.” Tough as nails, she’ll do whatever she has to do to take care of herself and her five (5) year old brother Robin, seeing as her mom has never been all that reliable, much to Duchess’ chagrin. Unfortunately for Duchess, after trying just a little too hard to take care of her family, she finds herself in a world of trouble, the likes of which I can’t imagine.

The bonds shared between brother and sister here are absolutely soul-wrenching. As if the characters of Duchess and Robin were real, I too found myself in great distress when tragedy befell these two time and again. If I could have scooped them up and taken them to safety, I would have.

“Walk” is Chief of Police. Though he checks in on the Radleys from time to time, he’s not a miracle worker and he has other fish to fry, including helping his former best friend, Vincent King rehabilitate after spending 30 years in prison. Walk, of course, has his own troubles, none of which he can run away from.

The mystery here is devastating, heart-wrenching, and gripping. Though there is tragedy here, there is also humor. Surprising, shocking, brilliant humor. The writing is beautiful and is full of grace and grit.

In truth: “We Begin At The End” by Chris Whittaker IS the BEST book I’ve read so far this year and I would be stunned if another book surpasses it. It will of course be at the top of my Goodreads best-of-list for 2021!

This is my first read by Chris Whittaker but it will most certainly not be my last. I will be searching for and reading his entire backlist shortly.

If this is not on your tbr, search it out! I switched back and forth between the book and the audiobook and loved both. George Newbern narrated the audiobook and his narration is phenomenal.

Thank you to NetGalley, and Henry Holt and Company for arc, and MacMillan Audio for the alc.

Published on Goodreads. Twitter and Insta on 2.10.21

As I mainly read Romance, a good mystery is something that brings me back to my early years of reading.

Chris Whitaker may be the best person to bring me back into the mystery world. This book is hauntingly good.
Duchess Day Radley and her brother Robin have been dealt a horrible hand. A mother who is inattentive and obviously has had a hard life. Duchess's life, at the age of 13, is a parent to Robin. With her mother not well and her father unknown, this young lady has taken it all on. They have just one ally - the Chief of Police - Walk.

The way in which Mr. Whitaker writes these characters, I fell in love with them, wanted the best for them, and didn't want to stop listening. And when it did end, I wanted more but the ending was perfect but when you read a great book - you always want more.

I had the chance to listen to the audible and the narration was good. I would have preferred to have a little more inflection or difference in his voice when other characters were talking because I often found myself unsure of who was talking. The pauses between characters speaking were a little short for my liking- again - not knowing who was talking. But honestly, it didn't take away from the story.

First thank you to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the advanced copy. I don’t even know what I think about this book. It’s good. Very good. However, IT. IS. SOUL. CRUSHING. It is one of the hardest books I’ve ever struggled through. It felt like at times the author was not necessarily telling a story but trying to make it as emotionally painful as possible. Ultimately, the book is about how unfair life is and how people have to take what’s dealt them.
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The story is told from two perspectives. The first one is Walk. He’s the chief of police in a small coastal California town. He’s lived there his whole life. At 15-years-old he was instrumental in sending his best friend to prison. Thirty years later he’s still trying to hold together his other friend, Star, from the aftermath. Star has two children. One is a 13-year-old girl named Duchess. Duchess is the other perspective. She’s suffered from severe neglect and is trying to care for her 5-year-old brother. There are a string of shady business deals and murders in the town that sends Walk and the kids into crisis.
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Seriously, if you like to feel really bad about the world, then this book is for you. You’ll be dying to know what happens next and thinking the whole time it can’t POSSIBLY get any sadder...but it does.

Thank you to @henryholtbooks and @netgalley for ALC. This book was amazing!! It deals with broken families, second chances, and survival. George Newborn did an amazing job narrating the story. The story of Duchess and how she sees herself as an Outlaw to take care of her mom and protecting her little brother is so heartbreaking. I love the story of Walk as he tries to help Vincent, his friend that he helped put behind bars years before. There is so much going on in the story and I was engrossed with it all.

I really struggled with this one. The pace was slow (though the narrator may have contributed to that, even on 1.7 speed it took a long time to listen). The characters just never really grew on me. I think it’s a very specific audience, I felt a similar way about “Where the Crawdads Sing” and I know lots of people loves that. Maybe it just needs to be marketed differently. I would still give this author another try.

Audiobook Review: We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (Author), George Newbern (Narrator)
(A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company, March 9, 2021)

5.0 Stars.

Definitely an early "Book of the Year" candidate, in several categories!

Audiobook narration and production: A+. George Newbern, whose considerable filmography credits include film, television and video games (incl. a part in the mega-hit "Final Fantasy") does a tremendous job lending a reassuringly calm voice to the narrative with insertions of first person voices invariably male, female and child, at times in sequence, all by himself, so seamlessly performed the audiobook reads like the work of an entire production cast.

"...Eternalism, the past and the present colliding, the force spinning the future off, never to be right..." - Chris Whitaker

Cape Haven, coastal Northern California.
A small, picturesque town near Salinas and Monterey.

Three decades earlier.

Friends and strangers come to search for missing seven-year-old Sissy Radley. Big sis Star stands sobbing beside despondent dad, Hal Radley.

Fifteen-year-old teenagers, Walker "Walk" and girlfriend Martha, armed with flashlights, comb the bluffs with teams of policemen and volunteers. Walk's best friend and Star's boyfriend, Vincent, star wide receiver of the local high school team, is nowhere to be found.

Weeks later, Walk gives key testimony which dooms his friend. A man's ten-year sentence is meted out to the underaged juvenile. A subsequent fatal altercation in prison years later tacks on twenty more years for Vincent King, who will forever atone for Sissy's death, in so many ways...

Present day, thirty years later.

Cape Haven, CA, is thriving with real estate developers moving in on cash-poor local home and property owners, incessantly building vacation and second homes.

Enter middle-aged ex-convict Vincent King. The day he's released from the penitentiary, he's met and driven home by Police Chief Walker.

Walk, now overweight, out of shape, hands shaking from Parkinson's symptoms, is heavily dependent on Dopamine pills to steady himself. Irredeemably flawed, no one loves his small town and its people more than Chief Walker.

His former girlfriend, Marsha May, is now an attorney, designer suit over Chuck Taylors, unmarried.

Tussled blonde Star Radley, estranged from her dad Hal, waitress /singer /dancer at the local bar, is a single mom with bipolar anxiety, blest with her five-year-old little prince, Robin, and thirteen-year-old Duchess.

Duchess Day Radley, all of thirteen years, is a defiant rebel, an outlaw she calls herself after an obscure relative from long ago, notorious bank robber of yore, Billy Blue Radley. She cares deeply for both her little brother and her hapless dysfunctional mom.

Relatively new player on the block, Dickie Darke, a ruthless giant of a man with size-16 boots, businessman, realtor, developer, owner of the bar where Star works, has his greedy eyes on the house and property left by Vincent's parents, the last of the million-dollar frontline homes overlooking the Pacific ocean. And then some.

Present day, Big Sky Country.

Out in Copper Falls, Montana, Hal Radley tends to his hundred acre farm. The granddaddy that Duchess and Robin never got to know is ready to give out the kind of forsaken love they didn't know they'd lost - and crave for.

A small, skinny black Montana boy with a mangled hand named Thomas Noble would be the Godsend "Owen Meany" character, the lionhearted little fella ready to give up his own life for his new lonely friend, the angel of his eyes, Duchess Radley.

Even as Duchess finally gets to fill in the blanks on a hitherto dreaded school assignment that she could never complete - her little bro, her mom, her dad, her grandpa - some of whom she hadn't known, some of whom she'd hated once but now love with all her life, all of them now complete,

- her very own family tree.

After so many gut wrenching, tragic hands dealt, once more, she begins at the end.

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Breathtaking!

Released last March, 2020 in the UK, British Author Chris Whitaker's thriller, suspense, family drama, coming-of-age novel, "We Begin at the End", his third book, is widely acclaimed by the British and international press and many noted authors, including personal favorites A.J. Finn, Louise Penny, Jane Harper and B.A. Paris.

For this reader, the book, a strong candidate for "2021 Book of the Year" in several categories imho, comes in as a totally unexpected early-in-the-year reading gem!

Review based on an audio ARC from Macmillan Audio and NetGalley.

Very well developed characters and an extremely engaging story. Well thought out and very suspenseful story line that keeps the reader guessing until the final twist! This is the book to read this year! Highly recommended!

This is the audio version review. A single narrator, George Newbern, delivers the story in a clear, easy to follow voice yet the listener can feel the emotion of the characters. The story goes between two main characters and eventually different states and all is done with clarity.
Starting in a California Coastal town, Cape Haven, we meet Duchess, a 13-year-old who has had and continues to have a hard life with a parent that struggles with substance abuse. Made fun of and poor, Duchess takes on the mantle of a tough kid. Her one soft spot, though, is for her brother Robin. For him she will do anything
Walk, is the local police and a member of the community going back to when he was a child. A good friend to Duchess's mother. He keeps and eye out for Duchess and Robin. But it all starts to go bad when a local boy gets out of prison and comes back to Cape Haven. Land developers, past crimes, old hurts, and new secrets all come together with an unknowing Duchess at their center.
This story has it all, crime, family, secrets, and heartbreak.

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy in exchange for a honest review.

It's official, Duchess Radley is officially one of my all-time favorite characters. At 13 years of age she is a self-proclaimed outlaw, she isn't afraid of anything or anyone, she is fiercely protective of her younger brother, she can put a bully in their place and isn't afraid to mouth off to adults when she perceives they have wrong her or her family...she is an outlaw after all.

Walk is a man of the law. He hasn't ever left his coastal town despite the memories the town holds. 30 years ago he gave a testimony that helped to put his best friend away in adult prison when they were just teenagers themselves. Since then he has always looked out for Duchess' family as her mom, Star, has never been quite the same since losing her sister Sissy.

Vincent King, the best friend he testified against, is getting out of prison after serving 30 years and Walk is ready to welcome him back for a fresh start.

When tragedy strikes the town once again Walk is desperate to protect those he loves and solve the case. Meanwhile, Duchess is desperate to keep her family together, whatever the cost.

Walk and Duchess are both such well developed characters, their motivation and intent in everything they do is without question. The rest of the (great) cast of characters helped build the atmosphere and the sense of community. There were moments I laughed out loud and moments that made me cry. It is definitely a book that will be hard to follow up and fill the shoes of these amazing characters that jumped off the page.

If audiobooks are your thing, this one is narrated by George Newbern who did an amazing job bringing the story to life.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I believe that We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker and narrated by George Newbern would have been much more enjoyable read for me if I had physically read it or maybe had listened to a final copy. The narration was fabulous and the writing excellent. The criticism here is that I was lost. This story is told from multiple points of view on multiple timelines. Because I was listening to an unfinished/advanced copy audiobook, the chapters were not labeled or announced with characters and dates. As such, each chapter left me confused at the start and I had work to figure it out. 

Of course this is no criticism to the Author or the story or the narrator! But because of this, I don't feel it fair to give a full review. What I can say is that of what I did follow, I loved! This is a true crime mystery and family drama with intimate characters and complex relationships. Parts are really sad and it's devastating how hard some of their lives are. The struggles these characters endure are heartbreaking. Other parts are truly uplifting and encouraging examples of kind, human decency. 

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of this audiobook for review!

I kind of fought the rating of this... It took me until 20% of the way in to get hooked. So much exposition and set up that I didn't see a clear focus at first. Luckily, I kept going because as soon as it became (pretty much solely) Duchess's story, I was hungry for more. The story took off and I couldn't get enough. Then, as the story split into the sub-plots of the other prominent characters, the flow turned in to a waterfall.

Duchess is such an incredible character. Hal and Walk (and later Dolly) bring great support to the plot, but for me, it was all about Duchess. I really loved the character, Thomas too.

Once I found my sync, the story blossomed, and I found so much to love about it. I'm thrilled that I read it, and the overall impact it had on me, resulted in my 5 star rating. It's most definitely slow-burning and dark, but there are moments of brilliance and powerful hope that lift you up.

Listed as a thriller, the many twists and turns and 'reveals' keep you turning pages to the very end.

In the audiobook form, I found the narration quite good.

I received a copy from Macmillan Audio through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for gifting me this incredible Audio ARC of We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.

This was my first book by Chris Whitaker but certainly will not be my last. I will admit this book started slow, but once the story hit its first high note, I was hooked. It’s very much a slow burn. Deeply nuanced unforgettable characters, strong atmospheric settings and a rich story of childhood friendships, secrets, loyalties and betrayals.

Duchess Day “Outlaw” Radley might be my favorite literary character ever. She’s part Ramona the Brave and part Mattie Ross from True Grit. Her potty mouth had me bursting out in laughter, her ferocity in protecting her brother had me breaking out in sobs. And don’t even get me started on Grandpa Hal!!!!! Truly a book I won’t quickly forget. This is a literary thriller that boarders on Southern fiction at its finest.

I hope this book ends up in everyone’s hands.

Beautifully written and narrated, I loved this novel about a fierce 13-year-old protagonist, Duchess Day Radley, one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve come across in literature. I also loved the other narrator, Walk, the chief of police in a small California town. This novel is part murder mystery, part love story, an epic family saga and all heart. If it doesn’t break your heart you might not have one! It’s so worth reading and I highly recommend it. I can imagine this would make an excellent movie as well, and I hope it is made into one. Now I’m eager to read Chris Whitaker’s other books and whatever he writes next. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an advanced readers copy.

I can't tell whether We Begin at the End made my heart break or grow three sizes - but I can say with certainty that this book gripped me.

The beginning is a bit slow; while I was engaged, I wasn't immediately on the edge of my seat. That's not a criticism; I really enjoyed the way the author set the scene and gently placed the reader in their characters' world.

We Begin at the End is a mystery, with grit, but it's also the story of a girl determined to face challenges as an "outlaw." And the cop who'd do just about anything to protect her and her brother. As well as about a dozen other characters who felt so real to me. It was because of my attachment to them that I simply could not put this one down after reaching the halfway point.

I've seen this book described as "emotionally charged" and I think that's a good way to put it. There is a lot of pain on display. But there's hope in these pages too.

Reading experience: I began the book without having read the synopsis and, reading it now, I think that was a good call (though be advised it does take at least a few pages to get a grasp of the characters and setting). I listened to an advanced listening copy and found the narrator fantastic.

A powerful story. Two car accidents that will set in motion some many changes in some many people’s lives that will last for more than thirty year. Deaths, broken hearts, friendship, family all involved in this complex story. A really great book and ever better as audiobook.

A touching and heartbreaking family drama with lovable and flawed, human characters. The mystery plot keeps the story moving forward, but the real center of the story here are the well-written characters.