Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of <i>Just Get Home</i> in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

<h4 style="margin-top: 84px;">The Gist</h4>

<i>Just Get Home</i> by Bridget Foley is a gripping novel that combines elements of thriller and drama, focusing on the harrowing journey of two women trying to survive in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in Los Angeles. The narrative explores themes of survival, resilience, and the unexpected bonds formed in times of crisis.

<h4>The Details</h4>

The story follows Beegie, a teenage runaway, and Dessa, a single mother, whose lives intersect when an earthquake strikes LA. Both women find themselves navigating the chaos and destruction, driven by a single goal: to get home. As they journey through the city’s wreckage, they confront their pasts, their fears, and the harsh realities of their situation, forging an unlikely but powerful bond.

Foley does an excellent job of creating complex, relatable characters. Beegie’s toughness and vulnerability, coupled with Dessa’s determination and maternal instinct, drive the narrative and make their struggles compelling.

The author effectively conveys the tension and unpredictability of a city in crisis. The detailed descriptions of the earthquake’s aftermath and the challenges faced by the characters add to the immersive experience.

Moreover, the novel shines in its exploration of human resilience and the will to survive. The growing connection between Beegie and Dessa highlights the strength found in unexpected alliances.
Weaknesses:

However, while the premise is intriguing, some plot developments are predictable, reducing the suspense. A few more unexpected twists could have elevated the story.

Also, some supporting characters lack depth and development, making their interactions with the protagonists feel less significant. More attention to these characters could have enriched the narrative.

<h4>The Verdict</h4>

Overall, <i>Just Get Home</i> is a compelling read that offers a vivid portrayal of survival in the face of disaster. Bridget Foley successfully creates strong, relatable protagonists and an intense, gripping atmosphere. Despite some pacing issues and predictable elements, the novel’s exploration of resilience and human connection makes it a worthwhile read. It earns three stars for its engaging characters and poignant themes, though it could benefit from a tighter narrative and more surprises.

An earthquake hits and two people are trying to find something. One a way home to her daughter. The other a family to call her own. Dessa needs to get home. Her young daughter is there and she feels the need to hold her. Beegie has been in foster care all her life and needs to find a forever home. A place where she is loved and truly cared for.

These two would not have noticed each other unless this natural disaster would have happened. Between the covers of this book lies a story that will hit you in the heart. Pull you in and make you have some strong feelings.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

I read a lot of thrillers but the author utilizes a natural disaster in order to throw the characters together under the toughest of circumstances. I have read this trope from the perspective of a closed circle sort of mystery but this isn’t that. It is a more unique take on the reaction the characters and society would have to a major disaster.
Engrossing read.
#JustGetHome #NetGalley#Harlequin

An intense and sometimes alarming look at what would happen after the big one hit. Told from two perspectives which eventually merge, this is a study in determination as Dessa is trying to Just Get Home to her daughter, left with a babysitter, and Beegee, a teenage lost soul, just wants a home to feel safe. A raw and unsettling story of the perils faced when humanity unravels as the buildings crumble and the fight to stay alive begins.

New to me author but definitely won't be last. Thoroughly enjoyed this story. Thanks Netgalley and to the publisher for letting me read this advance copy.

Dessa and Beegie might never have even acknowledged each other in their regular lives, but living through a big earthquake puts them unexpectedly together to fight for their lives, and maybe even fight for each other.

While they come from totally different worlds, the rich (appearing) white woman and the poor black child end up needing each other more than either one would admit. Beegie has the street smarts and toughness, but Dessa has been learning about living life to defend more than just yourself, and what you may be surprisingly willing to do if there's someone else relying on you.

Each of the characters were sometimes annoying, but then they'd turn around and be so relatable you wanted to reach out and help them. The two very different characters definitely made their situations even more striking. I'd give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It was a quick-paced read that gave a lot of unexpected angles and consequences to a natural disaster.

loved this as a thriller, it had everything that I was looking for in a thriller. The characters were great and I really enjoyed the suspense going on in the book.

The core of the book was around an earthquake that hit California and our two main characters who had to survive it and reach home. A character based story by a new author for me, Bridget Foley, the author’s talent rested in the way she etched her characters bringing out their emotions as well as the descriptions of the settings.

How both the characters met up and survived the next few days formed the crux of the story. The entire prose had many evocative moments where many issues were dealt with. There were quite a few triggers, though sometimes the flashbacks were confusing, but those were just minor.

Quite a few dark moments the book held, which nearly stopped my heart. Overall an engaging read.

If you’re looking for a thriller about the aftermath of an earthquake, a book filled with suspense and action, you’ll only get that in small doses here. What you will get is a character study of how people with tragedy and how their behavior is affected. When civil society disappears in an instant, what happens and who survives? I felt that a few points were belabored a bit too much, which took me away from the “humanity” aspect of the situation. There are several uncomfortable parts that other readers may find difficult, including but not limited to assault, infidelity, and racial bias. They didn’t bother me as they added realism, but others may have issues. The blurb is right, it does contain weighty, challenging content. For a full review, please visit Fireflies and Free Kicks. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin (MIRA) for a digital ARC of the book.

Just Get Home by Bridget Foley is a disaster thriller that gives an imagining of what could happen if the Big One, a massive earthquake, hit Los Angeles, CA. The first thing I would say is this isn’t the pretty side of humanity in this story so it would definitely be best said that this one needs a trigger warning, the biggest with rape.

Dessa is a single mother that’s life revolves around her young daughter but has taken a rare night out after securing a babysitter for her little girl. When the earthquake happens the only thing on Dessa’s mind is her daughter, not knowing if her daughter is ok or safe after the earthquake is the one thing keeping Dessa moving on her way home all the way across the city.

Beegie is a young teenager who has seen her share of horrors already in her short life growing up in foster care. Beegie’s current foster situation has her not wanting to return so she finds herself out on a city bus away from home when the earthquake hits. As Beegie and Dessa both find themselves fighting for survival they find their paths crossing and may just need each other to survive.

One would hope that if any true disaster happened in the real world that it would be far far away from most author’s imaginations, including this one, and the people of the world could pull together. However, living in a city where the news is not pretty every day I wouldn’t at all be surprised if things did take a quick, dark turn as they do in this book giving it a realistic but scary and often cringeworthy feeling as reading. I got off to a bit of a slow start with this one so in the end I landed on 3 1/2 stars.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I love great action in my reading, and when I saw the blurb for this title I was definitely intrigued having read earthquake disaster books in the past. When an earthquake hits Los Angeles, two young women are left to their own devices to Just Get Home. If you've ever been in a situation where all that you need is suddenly cut off, I was expecting a tense and potentially dangerous situation for the two heroines in this story -- and this story delivered on that.

Beegie and Dessa face some very serious situations as they try to get back home after the big one. As one might expect, this book might be difficult for some because of the content. There's chaos and crime, rape and violence against women, so this tale is not for everyone. This sort of gritty realism is done very well in this book, but some readers may find it uncomfortable. Just a little word to the wise on that topic.

After a bit of a slow start, once the earthquake hits the story becomes harrowing, emotional and at times suspenseful. Told in dual point of views, Beegie and Dessa's backgrounds contribute to the decisions they make today. The story really moves along nicely when dealing in the current time period.

This is a tale of survival -- or maybe more accurately, a handbook for compartmentalizing the things in life that can take you down. There is almost an apocolyptic feel to what happens in this story and the action is what makes things move along nicely. I found Beegie and Dessa's relationship interesting to follow as they handle the situations they find themselves in.

Overall, an exciting reading experience. If you are in the mood for a suspenseful disaster story with two strong lead characters, you might like Just From Home.

A complementary copy was provided for review by the publisher.

Fast-paced, but with plenty of character, this is one of those books you just can't put down. Delivers everything the reader wants, including an appropriate ending. Terrific story!

Favorite Quotes:

Sometimes there is a recognition between two people that hastens their transition from strangers to friends. Like falling in love, but without the hormones.

It will be chaos for days. Weeks. There will be looting. Riots. The earthquake isn’t the real disaster, Dessa. The disaster is what happens after.

What must it be like to have that power? To not be afraid, but to have others be afraid of you? Not just right now on this dark street, but on all the dark streets.

Beegie’d never thought of it before, but she realized most people sounded like animals when they laughed; Barb sounded like a donkey, brays with big deep breaths in between. And Eric sounded like a chimpanzee, kinda screaming and baring his teeth.

You know only white people camp, right? … Camping, hiking… all that is a white thing. Black people, Mexicans, Latinos, whatever, we don’t do shit like that… It’s rich people pretending to be poor. Sleeping outside. Eating on the ground and shit. Only white people are crazy enough to play homeless for fun. All ‘getting in touch with nature.’ Brown people, uh-uh. We don’t pretend. We don’t get in touch with nothing.

My Review:


Wow, this was a tense, insightfully observant, and all too realistic and disturbing revelation of the unchecked inhumanity and brutality once terror and lawlessness are unleashed following a natural disaster.

Dessa was socializing with friends on one side of LA while her toddler was at home with a new babysitter when an earthquake rips the town apart. The challenges from the lack of resources, destruction, and environmental hazards were a lesser impediment to her attempts to return to her child than the dangerous, surreal, malicious, and uninhibited cruelty and barbarism of the citizens she encountered along the way.

Bridget Foley ever so aptly captured the fractured underbelly of all levels of society while exposing their anxious inner musings, memories, biased observations, regrets, poor choices, and base natures. The storylines were fraught with distress and taut with angst and impending peril with each encounter. It was riveting, exhausting, compelling, and disheartening, and oh so shrewdly and cunningly paced. Ms. Foley is quite the storyteller, but her evocative words are not ones I’d want to peruse before heading off to the land of nod least I thrash in my sleep.

As a big fan of disaster movies, I had never read a book about a natural disaster, so when I saw Just Get Home I figured it was the perfect time. The movie follows two characters, Beegie and Dessa as their paths cross after a terrible earthquake in Los Angeles. Dessa trying to get home to her daughter, comes across Beegie a few times and the two end up traveling together in hopes of making it where they need to go.

Right from the jump I love Dessa. She’s a single mom who is doing what she needs to do to raise her child. Beegie is an orphan who hates going back to her foster home. These are two unlikely allies that come together to survive a real life booby trapped city. There’s some really dark situations that are brought to light in this story. Aside from the obvious death of many people from buildings falling and other earthquake related things, Dessa and Beegie show incredible strength that as a reader I’d hope I had in their situation. These characters had deep backgrounds that we got to witness through flashbacks and memories. Foley has a great writing style that made me want to keep reading without taking a break. Darn my human body for needing sleep. The pages flipped fast and I never hit a lull where I was bored. I loved the characters and I loved their back story.

I’d strongly recommend this book for anyone who loves strong women characters. Dessa and Beegie are incredibly strong and I love watching them survive this crisis and risk their lives to save each other over and over. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see if they would make it home and I loved hearing their backstories. If you are looking for an intense read, check it out.

𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦 by Bridget Foley was a hybrid of genres: suspense, dystopian, mystery, and thriller. It was a heavy, hard read, and honestly there were a few times I found it to be too much, had to take a break, and wasn’t sure I was going to be able to finish it.

There are a few trigger warnings to be aware of: sexual assault, abuse, and other intense forms of violence.

While this was a harder read for me, 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝐰𝐚𝐬
a well-written, keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat story, an exploration of humanity’s darkness centering around two women who team up after living through a natural disaster and the lengths they will both go to survive and get back to the ones they love. Beegie and Dessa were great, fully explored characters and I really liked them, individually and together. All of the relationships in this book were done well, and I felt like I knew these characters. I was definitely invested in their stories.

Overall, 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦 is an electric, stark novel that will have your heart thumping out of your chest and mind whirling. It’s the definition of ‘page-tuner.’ While I strongly advise everyone to heed trigger warnings, I do very much recommend picking up Bridget Foley’s 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦!

𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝑨𝑹𝑪 𝒄𝒐𝒑𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒃𝒚 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝑷𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈/𝑴𝑰𝑹𝑨 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔 (𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌-𝒚𝒐𝒖!). 𝑨𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌-𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝑷𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈/𝑴𝑰𝑹𝑨 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒓!

Circumstances bring Dessa and Beegie together. Choice keeps them together on their journey home. This relationship and the characters shine in Just Get Home by Bridget Foley because in the middle of this post-apocalyptic scene that is prefaced by a life of abuse, a story the family we choose emerges. Choices are made, and I am not sure how they are going to turn out. However, by that point, I am invested enough in the characters to hope that they make the "right" ones.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2021/04/just-get-home.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and the Winter 2021 mystery/thriller from Harlequin Trade Publishing

Minutes, days, perhaps weeks after a major earthquake hits, every survivor’s story becomes a journey of one kind or another, a journey to get to a specific place or people. In Just Get home, we meet a teenager and an older woman who agree to help each other. They have nothing in common, really, other than a need to not be alone in this effort. If anything, the two don’t even share a goal; Dessa wants only to get home to her young child while Beegie has no true home and no one who really cares whether she lives or dies.

Dessa and Beegie are brought together randomly by, first, a vicious crime and then by another, circumstances that are not surprising following such a sudden disaster. As we all know, fear and uncertainty evoke the worst kind of behavior as well as acts of kindness and it’s the latter that initially create the bond between two such different women. Watching their connection grow during their struggles is a thing of emotional satisfaction and becomes the heart of Ms. Foley’s compelling tale.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, April 2020.

This is a very emotional story. What happens after a major earthquake and there are many people dead and you need to get back to your daughter. I love how the author handles this story. The author describes the shock and the horrors that might happen on the streets after a major disaster. I love the characters of Dessa and Beegie. This story shows some of what different people can go through after a disaster. I received a copy of this book from Harlequin for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.

Bridget Foley's latest novel, Just Get Home is an emotionally compelling read, one that merges mystery, suspense, and thriller elements all into one.

Beegie and Dessa are two complete strangers. They couldn't have less in common with each other if they tried. Yet one disaster is about to bring them together.

Beegie is a teenager hopping from foster home to foster home. Her life has been full of trauma and betrayal. Perhaps, in a way, that helped prepare her to survive the events that are about to happen. Though even she wasn't expecting an earthquake to hit while she was on the bus.

Dessa is a single mom in desperate need of a night off. So that's what she did – she hired a babysitter and went out with her friends. After all, one of her best friends is about to get married, which must be celebrated. Only...Dessa isn't celebrating now. All she wants to do is make it home.

“Beegie had kept the bags because she'd been around long enough to know that sometimes it doesn't work out.”

Just Get Home is a dark and dramatic tale that shows the lengths that two women can and will go through to make it home. This is a novel that shows the best and worst that humanity has to offer.

Before I begin my review, I should mention that many sensitive subjects come up in Just Get Home. Rape, assault, affairs, and abuse all play significant roles in what happens inside these pages, so consider yourself warned.

The story is told through two different perspectives, Beegie and Dessa. I love how different their views and experiences are. It makes for such a compelling read, even while it broke my heart at times (for Beegie's sake, that is).

I'll confess that it did take me a little while to get into Just Get Home, but I think once I was around three (ish) chapters in, I found myself invested in both of their stories. Though I was still trying to figure out their past – it took a while before I could puzzle it all together. Something that was clearly done with intent.

Just Get Home is so full of twists, turns, and surprises that it was almost difficult to keep up with at times. Almost. There's no shortage of drama or terrifying scenarios in this tale. Not to mention plenty of heartbreaking revelations and moments to make a reader stop and think.

One of the things I liked about yesterday’s book was that even with werewolves in the mix the author made it clear that monstrosity and monstrousness was really a human condition. No werewolves – or any creature that goes bump in the night – need apply, because we’re nasty enough on our own.

Just Get Home is a story about the evil that men – and women, but mostly men – do when the restraints of so-called civilized society are stripped away. It’s a story about what happens when the world comes to an end – at least temporarily.

And this story is all the more monstrous for feeling so close to the real and the here and the now.

Escape Rating B: I have more feelings about this book than I do coherent thoughts, so I’m putting the rating up early. I don’t read a lot of thrillers, and I was expecting this one to more about the journey and the unlikely partnership between Dessa and Beegie, and less about the messes their lives were in before.

This is also a book where I recognize that it’s good of its type and that lots of people are going to love it from the edge of their seat, but that I’m not the right reader for it. YMMV.

It doesn’t help my own reading of the story that Beegie and Dessa are hot messes long before the story opens. And that so much of the mess of Dessa’s life was of her own making. She had – and still has at least before the quake hits – PLENTY of options. I’d have felt more sympathy for her if she’d tried and failed than that she doesn’t seem to have tried at all.

But where Dessa is in her mid-late 20s, Beegie is a decade younger or a bit more. She’s been bounced around the foster care system for reasons that are not of her making, and it feels like her life is in the situation it’s in before the story opens because her choices have been so limited by race, by poverty, by age and by gender. She isn’t making good choices, but she is also so stuck in so many different ways that it’s no surprise that she lashes out the few times she can.

One of the things this book does well, when it focuses on the immediate present and not either character’s past, is the immediacy of all the ways that civilization and civilized behavior break down in the wake of a disaster. The frightening thing is that if the “Big One” really does hit California things will likely be even worse.

For this reader, the harrowing nature of their journey drove home that life at its best and certainly at its worst is considerably more dangerous for women in so many ways that their situation forces them to think about constantly.

And us too.