A very impressive debut from Samantha Crewson! This novel is identified as "upmarket crime/suspense," which is not a combination you see all that often, but absolutely nails what to expect from this read.

Crewson's line level writing is absolutely stunning. The tone of the novel is firmly established on page one and stays consistent throughout. Dialogue, setting, and characterization are all spot on, uniting together to make for an atmospheric, immersive, and emotionally hard-hitting read. Tone is so important in a suspense novel, and this novel has it in spades!

This book tackles difficult topics like familial abuse, drug addiction, and the general narrow-mindedness that permeates small-town Americana. The cast of characters is complex - not all (or even most) are likeable, but they are hellishly realistic. The POV character, Providence, has a clear, strong voice, and, despite a charged backstory, is easy to root for. Providence is a product of her circumstances, and she fits solidly within the "willing to the wrong things for the *right* reasons" archetype. This makes for a tense and twisty reading experience.

The storytelling in this debut was masterful - a real page turner that took my breath away with fury one moment, then beauty or pain the next. Once I started reading, I couldn't put this book down. This is most definitely a debut to watch for 2025!

This is probably my favorite thriller of the year! There were so many different twists. I was hooked from page 1!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book.

Thirteen years ago, Providence Byrd threw the family car in reverse and ran over her mother. Even though her mother survived, that single instant of teenage madness made Providence a felon and irrevocably altered her life. When her mother disappears years later under suspicious circumstances, Providence tells herself that returning home is her chance to find closure after a prolonged estrangement from her family. Never mind that this is only half of the truth: she’s also returning to finally confront her abusive father, Tom Byrd. Nothing can stamp out Providence’s certainty that he is guilty of whatever terrible thing has happened to her mother.

As the search unfolds, Providence is haunted by the wounds of her past, none of which cut as deep as the distance between her and her younger sisters. Harmony and Grace are both uniquely scarred by her attempted matricide, and both have their own idea of what reconciliations might look like – if reconciling is even possible. Harmony urges Providence to make their father pay for his sins; Grace begs her to end the cycle of violence that has haunted their family for generations. As her thirst for vengeance collides with her desire to heal her relationships with her sisters, Providence must decide which she values more: revenge or redemption.

Great character development. This book was very gripping! 4 out of 5 ⭐️

Every Sweet Thing is Bitter is a gripping and poignant crime fiction debut by Samantha Crewson. Providence is a proud single and childless lesbian who reluctantly returns to her hometown when her mother goes missing. After years estranged from her sisters, Providence hates to be back home under the eye of her controlling and violent father. But she is certain that there was foul play, and she won't rest until she finds answers herself about her mother's disappearance.

This novel gripped me from the beginning, and I was amazed by Crewson's character development. Providence is nothing you expect from a female main character in a crime novel. She's a woman who has made serious mistakes in her past, for which she is unapologetic. This crime and trauma from her youth follows her as she tries to solve the mystery and look out for her younger sisters.

If you like out of the box female characters who are badass, resilient, and unafraid to be themselves, this book is for you. If you also like crime thrillers that don't center police or detectives, pick this up. This is a book that will keep you up reading until you finish and pull your heartstrings simultaneously. Already I wait with bated breath for Crewson's next novel. Get this on your TBR!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

This book is definitely a must read, I could not set the book down once I started reading it, there are parts where it was not easy to read but that helps the book make its points for sure.
I am normally a really good pattern finder but I was in suspense during this whole book up until right before the twist when I finally figured out what had happened. And then I had to go back and see if there were any signs that I had missed.
The comparisons for this book are spot on they are all raw and the imagery is fully there throughout the book.
I think that everyone should give this debut book a chance and give it all the love it deserves

4.5 stars! This book is so much more than a book about a missing woman. This thriller and mystery had so many plot twists and the ending I did not see coming.

Providence’s story is one of redemption, strength and familial love. It’s a story of how trauma can affect children— I liked that each daughter had their own way of coping and they have been all affected differently.

I thought I was getting a crime story with a queer female character but I got so much more! A definite must read!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Ex-con Providence returns to her hometown to search for her mother who has gone missing. The catch is that Providence has not long been out of jail for running her mother over 13 years ago.

As Providence reunites under duress with her abusive father and the 2 younger sisters she barely knows, she has to face up to her past and the effect her actions had on her sisters. She also wants answers from those adults who knowingly turned a blind eye to the abuse she lived with at the time of the incident, and that her sisters are still living through.

This book is very well written. The characters have been well presented and the multi-faceted Providence has been written with honesty and grit.

The story is addictive, it weaves its way through complex social challenges such as alcoholism, sexual abuse, racism, and gay rights and does it in a thought provoking way.

A great read but do take notice of the trigger warnings.

This book starts with a content warning, unlike many other books with such a warning, this is absolutely needed. The author tells you what to expect, if you aren’t up for it right now, or maybe ever, don’t read it. We are talking about abuse, self harm, addiction, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The book is well-written, the story never letting you go completely. Providence is a main character you both hate and love, much like some of the side characters do. The book never is an easy read, there are some beautiful moments in, moments that show light and hope in darkness. Overall the book is bleak, but it shows a lot of strength in different ways.

Not a fun and light read, definitely one to recommend for when you want something with substance.

***Do I want to read an “upmarket suspense debut”?***

“Upmarket suspense debut” is the phrase the publisher uses to advertise this first book by Samantha Crewson. I have seen the label upmarket being used for books for quite a while now. But I never looked up what it exactly means. Turns out, the internet and Google come up with a plethora of definitions. All seem to have in common that it means a book that blurs the lines between “literary” and “commercial”, that is, being a compromise between being art for the sake of art and being sellable to the masses. This very much sounds like a book which everybody is currently reading, and which TV hosts and book clubs discuss in public. Also, a book I might be less inclined to read next, since I already missed the hype. But since this comes as an advance review copy und thus not many people have read it already, I give it a shot.

This is the story of Providence Byrd who has not been home for thirteen years, after she committed a brutal crime which threw her in prison and exile. She returns now, after her mother went missing, to participate in the search and potentially to reconnect with her estranged family. The plot is propelled forward through her point of view. It is concise and attention-grabbing and sucks me into the story immediately. The style is visual, the language beautiful. Like describing towns “… across the Midwest [that] comfort travelers with vestiges of a livelier past, like hollowed-out car factories, grain silos rusted from disuse, ...” But not Annesville, Providence’s hometown: “Instead, there are three liquor stores lined up along the main road like unfelled dominoes ...”

Also, the bittersweet chokecherry fruit that keeps appearing throughout the book, being not only the signature fruit of the land but also aligning with the mood of the story. With few exceptions, none of the characters are innocent or pleasant. And one is outright evil, with only one way to redemption: “Our father must die.”

While the story speeds along towards the inevitable climax, many complex characters enter the story and secrets upon secrets turn up. So many secrets, so many plot twists! Turns out that this is exactly the book I wanted to read, and I read it in one long session. I realize it ticks many of the boxes for “upmarket”. But it turns out that the label does not matter. This is simply a good book—get it and read (and do not care about the book club)!

(based on an ARC from NetGalley)

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. WOW! I have not read a new author whose writing was this good in quite a while. A true talent. A heavy storyline that weaves suspense into what is a deep and twisty tale of sisterhood, familial relations, and an all around great mystery.

This was a pretty good book! It had a lot going on at times which made it confusing, but overall it was enjoyable to read! I think the characters were likable

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Providence Byrd’s mother goes missing, and she returns to her rural Nebraska hometown to help search for her. But it isn’t an ordinary homecoming—Providence hasn’t been home in 13 years, and several of those years were spent in prison for committing a felony. Returning to the town where she suffered years of abuse at the hand of her father blends her past and present together in uncomfortable ways.

This novel masters the idea of the grey area. Your hometown can be the place where you won softball tournaments and ate delicious chokecherry pie, and the place that triggers your deepest traumatic memories. The people you know can love you completely, and they can fail to be what you need in ways that actively harm you. Parents don’t always love their children. Soulmates are not always romantic partners. The past happened then, and it’s happening now.

I think anyone who revisits their hometown after moving away can relate to the time warp of going back. The cyclical nature of things, where nothing seems to change except you. Providence’s journey home is more harrowing than most. While the novel doesn’t shy away from visceral depictions of abuse, none of them feel gratuitous; they all exist as experiences that made Providence who she is. I wouldn’t exactly call this a coming-of-age story, but we do get to see Providence grow to inhabit her own power.

I read this book in a single day. I don't usually do that; in fact I haven't done that in years. I basically abandoned all of my other responsibilities just to finish this book. I also read it as an ebook on my laptop, which I don't really like doing lol -- so all of that should just show you how much I could NOT put this book down.

I went into ESTIB expecting a plot-heavy thriller, which I did get, but I didn't expect to be so wowed by the beauty of the language. Samantha Crewson can not only concoct a twisty, suspenseful plot, but she can write very well on the sentence level. There are phrases like this -

<i>"No matter how many years separate me from that day, there is no new beginning. Nothing changes. Absolution is a myth. Some sins you must pay for again and again and again, as long as you live."</i>

and

<i>"It is an emotional bloodletting, a return to a place long forgotten in the fog of memory."</i>

and

<i>"People are only the tally of their memories."</i>

and

<i>"The little memories are the ones that eat me alive."</i>

(I just realized that 3 of these 4 quotes are about memory. Maybe there's just something about the idea of memory that lends itself to beautiful writing.)

Providence's reaction to emotional pain is to bite herself; she has scars all over her arms. The writing about this was so well done--I could feel the narrator's pain, her urgency and desperation to sink her teeth into her skin and numb herself to emotional anguish by way of physical self-harm. It felt so REAL. Most SH topics in books focus on cutting and nobody really talks about the other methods, but I think this is so important to have been included. The contrast between her tattoos and her scars was another thing that stood out for me.

Providence has reshaped her body in another way -- she's got breast implants, lip injections and Botox, along with the tattoos. I LOVED the reasoning behind this, how she was taking control of her sexuality when, as a child/teenager, that sexuality had been either repressed or (we don't see much detail in this but it's heavily implied) taken advantage of in the most horrific way. Are you tired of women reshaping their bodies to appeal to men? Me too! And you're going to love this even more in that case, because Providence isn't into men anyway.

I genuinely had no idea where the greater plot, involving the missing mom, was going -- you think it's going to go one way, but nope, it's going another way entirely! But wait .... it's not going that way either! I loved that. It felt like being on a fun ride that you don't know where it's going to end up, but you know it'll end up somewhere good. Even just a third of the way through the novel, I knew I was in good hands.

The patchwork of characters was so colorful. That thing where you can tell who's speaking without having to use dialogue tags? Yeah. This book has that. That's how vivid the characterization is. The depiction of the old man in the nursing home was heartbreaking, and I LOVED the complexity of the narrator's feelings around him. Yes, he was good for helping her when she was hurt by her father as a kid, but ultimately he never tried to get her out of the abusive household, because he was scared, because--let's just say it--he was kind, but he was a coward. Grappling with complicated feelings about a person who has done something good for you, but has not done ENOUGH, is hard to write about. Complexity in general is hard to write about. Crewson does it so well.

The scenes with Harmony, one of Providence's estranged sisters, are some of my favorites. She has a personality that's just as strong as Providence, but it's been warped. It's twisted, darker, an ugly underbelly of the narrator's persona. And yet even Harmony has a good side, which we see very clearly at the end of the book.

This is becoming way too long, so I'll just end by saying that I heartily recommend this book even if you are not generally a fan of mysteries or crime fiction. I NEVER read crime fiction--90% of what I read is litfic--yet I still loved this. It's hard to find a book that excels at both the genre/plot elements AND the writing-on-a-line-level elements, but this one does.

Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter is a story about a woman, Providence, who returns to her hometown to help search for her missing mother. It has been over a decade since Providence has returned- she was in prison for a crime against her mother and then rebuilt her life away from her terrible childhood memories. Now back in her hometown, she must face her family trauma, try to reunite with her younger sisters, and revisit many past relationships. I absolutely loved this book and loved Providence’s character. This is a story of rage, revenge, and ultimately, redemption. I would highly recommend this book to readers of character-driven crime fiction!

Amazing book, I didn’t want to put it down until I’d finished. I love how it speaks of the part of trauma everyone avoids talking about, the self destruction, the hurting yourself until it stops hurting in your brain.

I also love how it showed how you can turn your life around and it had all sides of the path from someone who doesn’t change, to someone who relapses, to someone who’s willing to go back to prison to protect the people they love and to someone who turns their life around completely.

The actual plot was great, I love a good crime story and it really had me guessing until the end, I thought I knew straight away what had happened but I was so wrong.