I liked the premise of this book but overall I just didn't like the story. I didn't connect with any of the characters and while suspenseful (a little) it doesn't easily fit into any particular genre. I wanted more mystery or more drama.

I really enjoyed the storytelling in this one. The author has quite a way with the turn of a phrase. The story itself was a tough one to read - a bit like watching the proverbial trainwreck. You see the wreck coming, you want to warn everyone about it, but you can only sit back and watch helplessly. We join Lida's life at 63 years old. She is now retired and widowed - with a lot of time on her hands to look back and reflect on her life. Her sister was killed 20 years earlier, the victim of her husband's rage when he finds out she was having an affair. Lida is left to pick up the pieces of the family, and to raise her young niece - now left without a mother and essentially a father. Lida couldn't have children of her own, and she lovingly and carefully raised this young girl. Her niece's father, is still in prison, but is coming to the end of his appeals. Lida becomes a bit obsessed, and befriends him though a prison pen pal program. Of course, she hides who she is in her letters, creating a somewhat flirtatious young personna, and it slowly becomes an out of control spiral with some unintended consequences.

This is a story about 63 year old recently widowed women named Lida Stearl. Years ago her brother-in-law Clarence Lusk killed her sister and her sister's lover. Lida struggling with having kids of her own she is given the gift of raising her niece Pam after this tragedy. Now with her husband gone and Pam is out the house and married Lida finds herself a little lonely. For Lida's birthday Pam buys her a computer which leads Lida to do some searches and she finds that her brother-in-law Clarence is looking for pen pals before he is due to be executed. Lida decides to write to him as 23 year old Maisie. Which leads her down a dangerous path obsessed with revenge.

This book tore at my heartstrings that this poor women was struggling with the pain of losing her sister and she did the only thing she thought she could do to maybe get some sort of closure. I really enjoyed this one. Thanks NetGalley and everyone involved!

This is a story about 63 year old Lida Stearl. Eighteen years ago her brother-in-law killed her sister and her sister's lover. She took in her niece Pam after the violent tragedy. Now that her husband has passed and Pamela has married she finds herself living a rather lonely life. Pamela buys her a computer for a present. After doing some google searches she finds that her brother-in-law Clarence is looking for pen pals before he is due to be executed. Lida decides to write to him as 23 year old Maisie. They then forge a relationship writing back and forth to one another. Lida has become absolutely obsessed with revenge on Clarence.

Initially I found this story interesting but as it went on my interest started to wane. I never really connected with any of the characters. I also found Lida and Pam's relationship a bit odd for how close they supposedly were.

I typically read a lot of thrillers, suspense, and mysteries and I think this book was just too slow a crawl for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for proving me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Aspects of this look at the aftermath of a murder were interesting from a psychological perspective. The characters were dark, difficult to like, but some of the emotions rang true.

3 1/2 Stars
While well written, this book is on the dreary side. Lida is an angry and bitter woman that is consumed by getting revenge. Will she lose everything in order to get that revenge, or does she realize what’s more important before it’s too late. A complex, interesting read from start to finish.

A violent crime from years ago becomes front and center for Tracy Manaster’s characters in THE DONE THING – a tragic event changes the course of lives and nothing will ever be the same. How far will one woman go?

Highly-charged, emotional, and frustrating at times. From obsession, hatred, and revenge to an attempt at forgiveness and acceptance. One life-altering event catapults a family into turmoil, revealing secrets and feeling that may leave them fractured forever.

For eighteen years and four appeals, Lida had waited. Each April she had petitioned. She despised the man, Clarence who had been responsible for putting her sister, Barbra in the ground. Clarence was the husband of Barbra and father of Pamela.

Barbra had left her daughter Pamela behind. Lida had raised Pam. Childless, she and Frank could not have children, and about the time their adoption came through, they had Pam to raise. Before they took custody he girl had spent exactly one weekend in her care.

Prior to her retirement at sixty, Lida was a successful orthodontist. Now Frank was gone, dead . . . and Pam was grown with a life of her own. Married and expecting.

Lida now has more time on her hands to obsess and scheme. She is bitter. She is angry. She wants Clarence to die. To suffer. “Clarence lingered, unshakable as the phantom weight a watch leaves on a naked wrist.”

She knew that once he died she could find new thoughts. She would love to serve him his last meal.

Barbra’s lover. Lawrence Richard Ring. Next Barbra fell, split apart by four bullets. Clarence had picked up Pamela and lied about a dentist appointment. Pamela was in the car. Clarence had been granted three letters to Pamela a year.

Presently, Lida has turned sixty-three and Pamela has purchased her a new computer. She comes up with a plan. She wants revenge. She discovers Clarence Lusk. Be a Penfriend. It’s the Write Thing. Be a Candle to Those in Darkness.

The Prison in Arizona. Inmate 58344. He wants a pen pal. She would change her name and set up a post office. She would be Maisie. Lida crosses a line and begins to write to Clarence. Pretending to be a flirty twenty-three-year-old, in an effort to attain retribution.

Will Clarence open up to her if he thinks she is someone else? Or will he be smart enough to catch her deception? Will she lose control of the situation?

What is Pam thinking or feeling? Does Lida consider her actionsLida thinks she is always rushing to get married, hoping the baby would be born—before the needle. The death of her father.

The author captures every evil thought of this angry, manipulative, and lonely woman. The strained relationship between aunt and niece. Lida is so consumed by revenge has she forgotten the family in front of her. She dwells on everything bad in her life and chooses to believe this one man is at fault and to blame.

The letters between Clarence and Lida delve deep into the human emotions, and how deep the scars run after a tragedy that will forever change lives. How after years it begins to consume her.

Scene (Chapter 35) was well done and quite comical. The phone call and banter between the two. The claws come out.

The description summary from the publisher was right on – fans of Elizabeth Strout’s, Olive Kitteridge — complex; quite similar to the heavy mood of darkness, pain, and gloom. The internal war waging within. Human imperfections and family dynamics. Learning to let go and free oneself of anger.

However, the writing is well-crafted as the author explores the complex minds of humans in the midst of tragedy and the overwhelming need for justice. The consequences of this obsession are at the heart of THE DONE THING.

After reading three books in a row back to back, The Last Suppers(also death row), What Remains True ( the aftermath of a boy dying), and now THE DONE THING. Something a bit lighter with humor is in order.

All three family dramas are well-written books which teeter on literary fiction; however, they are deep, dark, and sad. This is the type of book you may want to mix in among a few upbeat ones.

A special thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy.

JDCMustReadBooks

“We’d cremated her. Frank too. Everyone after Barbra, I cremated. The thought of another body in the ground. Still and wet, getting wetter. My horrible mind. I should have willed myself to sleep.”

Lida Stearl has never been able to move on from the murder of her sister Barbra at the hands of her brother in law, Clarence nor the fact that he once charmed her as much as anyone else. Always one to do what’s right and good, she fought to raise their daughter, Pam, the only child she and her husband Frank would ever have. Pam is grown now and creating a life for herself with her beloved husband Blue and his adoring family, her work with dogs. When she learns her brother-in-law is looking to connect with pen pals from his prison cell, the rot of an idea begins to take form. Apparently her “horrible mind” has fixated itself on Clarence, who certainly doesn’t deserve the “brightness of these fruits”, photos, memories connections to daughter Lida. She will see to it that his last days are torture to his mind, for he deserves no peace!

Lida’s anger is a poison she nurtures, what else is there to do with all her free days now that she’s widowed, alone. Revenge, a slip, a madness will make the ugliness inside of Lida rear it’s head. Clarence has always been orbiting Pam’s life, and his mother has lurked like a threat. Who is to blame for the terrible action Clarence chose, who suffers more than the survivors? Lida disgusts the reader just as much as the violent crime her brother in law committed. The reason is flimsy at best, but the reasoning behind most murders committed are. Clarence isn’t the only character full of guilt, but the bitterness inside of Lida is about more than her sister’s murder. How is the violence her heart harbors different that the anger Clarence was fueled by when he killed? We hate to think of comparisons to those who have committed the most heinous of acts.

She loved her sister, but Barbara had her flaws, her deceptions, her cunning and flippant ways. Lida slowly begins to shrivel inside, her hurt turns mean, getting in the way of the love she and her niece share. She is hungry to be the star in her heart, and is selfish of any lingering desire Pam has to know the father who has been locked away for much of her life. We’re not supposed to like this, because it’s ugly, and I thought of how such a situation is a reality for some people. How do you allow a relationship to grow between a child you love and care for and the parent who murdered your loved one? It’s a raw situation, it’s the unimaginable. I suppose many people would deny said parent the right, but how does that effect the child?

Pam is in a difficult situation, wondering her whole life over if ‘blood will tell’, being told over and over of her goodness, but of course we are all a little like our parents, the good the bad and the ugly. We are all ‘just people’, and even the most foul among us has some kernel of decency if not goodness inside of us. Lida never wanted Pam to think for a moment she is anything like that man! Which will likely make a child compare herself even more, and inspire curiosity. Of course Pam hungers for her father into adulthood, but she surely can’t do so freely without hurting her aunt who has been her only mother since the murder of her own. Lida would never stand for it, Lida sometimes forgets the horror wasn’t hers alone, that not all decisions are hers to make. Lida creates a fake persona in letters between she and Clarence. Just what is her end goal? She plays at more than that when she begins to visit his mother. Oh how ugly she becomes, how closely she resembles hatred, the sort of hatred that spawns murderous ideas, that makes Lida a person as rotten as Clarence. It begs the question, just how low can any of us go if the circumstances push and pull on us?

Morality is always easy when you’re never tested, isn’t it? We all love to think we’re good, we would do the right thing, but what do we know of our own hearts? I often thought, “good Lord Lida, you need to get a grip, your cruelty is showing.” Something in her has soured, this inner struggle with self-blame, regrets, shame, and petty jealousy. She has been Pam’s salvation, but hate is spoiling love. This is such a strange story, it is certainly more an examination of Lida than it is of Clarence’s violent act. It’s another form of victimization though too, Barbara was murdered but something was damaged inside of Lida and Clarence’s mother too, punished and cut out of Pam’s life simply for being the vessel that birthed a killer into the world.

I think it beautifully represents how insidious anger is. Lida spent so much time burying the pain over Barbara’s murder to run her practice (she’s an Orthodontist), raise her niece, and keep her marriage healthy that now in the quiet years of her life like the undead that buried anger is rising to the surface. Justice costs every family member, victims like dominoes. Clarence’s execution date is looming, but Lida is imprisoned as much as he is. What will her plan teach her about herself?

Publication Date: December 5, 2017

Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books

Not really sure I liked this book, it kept my intrest, but it was a little depressing reading about what Lida went through because she could not forgive.

This is a fascinating portrait of a woman in her 60s who has dealt with just so much pain in her life. Lida's sister was murdered by her husband Clarence, who is on death row, and she's created a persona and become his pen pal. Don't judge her. Don't judge her niece Pam, who as a a 5 year old was in the car when her father killed a police officer. Understand that both of them are wounded. I found them sympathetic. The internet has opened up a range of activity like Lida's charade. Does Clarence deserve to be fooled? Does Lida take satisfaction? Will this make her or Pam feel better? Not all questions are black and white. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Try this for one which will make you think.

It’s been twenty years since he murdered his wife and her lover, and now Clarence is rapidly approaching his execution day. He has one last appeal, and he’s hoping the woman he’s struck up a correspondence with might be able to help him out. He has no idea that the woman he has been corresponding with, the woman he has told everything to, is actually his sister-in-law, the sister of the woman he killed. Lida Stearl will do anything, lie, cheat, steal or worse, to see Clarence gets what’s coming to him. Manaster writes a story about two individuals it’s impossible to like, but she skillfully depicts the lasting effects of a violent crime, and maybe the point is that no one is those circumstances is going to be on their best behavior