Lions, Colorado is dying. Started over a century ago with high hopes, it never grew as other towns and cities did. The land wasn't good for farming and industry or mining never got started. Now it is a wreck of a town with only a handful of families still holding on.

The Walker family is one of these. John Walker is a welder and could make much more money anywhere else as he is an acknowledged master. His wife and son, Gordon make up the rest of the family. Gordon is about to leave for college along with his longtime girlfriend, Leigh. Leigh's mother runs the town cafe. The two have spent years talking about getting out of Lions and making their lives in the wider world and its about to happen.

Then John Walker dies unexpectedly. Gordon is torn between leaving with Leigh or staying behind to take care of his mother and the business. There has always been a rumor that the Walker men are cursed to forever take care of a ghost who resides north of the town. Is that keeping Gordon locked to Lions?

Readers will be haunted by this story. It is the story of many towns, started in glorious anticipation and left to decay as industries flee and jobs become scarce. It creates an insular environment where romantic entanglements are almost written in stone as there is a dearth of possible candidates and where residents must decide if they will continue until the very end or find the strength to move on and make another life. The writing is lovely and descriptive with a hint of mystery around the ghost who may or may not exist. It also explores the question of what we owe our nuclear families as we in turn grow up. This novel is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

I occasionally had my qualms about Lions , but ended up loving it through the ending and further reflection. The atmosphere throughout is intriguing, and unsettling. Beautifully written, Lions by Bonnie Nadzam.

Beautifully written, Lions by Bonnie Nadzam, takes place in a modern ghost town populated by just over 100 people on the high plains of Colorado.
It is a story about family, friends, living in a town most have left due to persistent drought.
The townspeople love their stories which are something to help them through the rough times.
When a travelling stranger and his dog appear one day his unsettling presence sets off a chain reaction that will change the fates of everyone he encounters.
This haunting book gave me some of the answers about why people choose to remain in such places and how a desolate town without hope for the future can feel like home.

I really needed to mull this one over before reviewing as I definitely had mixed feelings about Lions by Bonnie Nadzam.  Initially I found my expectations were not being met by the actual reading experience.  I had recollections of many GR friends who rated it highly yet I found it was taking me a long time to engage with the story.     As I continued reading I almost came to appreciate the slow pace, the remote style of delivery and the ambivalence I felt toward some of the characters,  but there were still parts that baffled me.  

Desolate was the word that most readily came to mind and in hindsight this worked well as a description of the town of Lions, and to some extent it's townsfolk.    Lions is a town in decline and following an incident with a stranger the decline is accelerated,  some would eventually come to call the place cursed.    Some unforeseen deaths, the shutting down of businesses, and people begin to leave in droves.    Not that there were that many residents to begin with but when there were only eleven left it was promoted as a ghost town.  Many of the residents had an internal battle, feeling obligated to stay despite wanting to go.    Gordon felt compelled to stay, his girlfriend felt equally strongly the need to leave.  Their story was of interest to me and yet ultimately I didn't get the closure I needed.    Other parts of the story left me scratching my head wondering what was going on,  feeling a bit lost and that's not a feeling I enjoy when I'm reading.   Possibly it was the introduction of fantasy type themes that lost me.

On balance I find myself hovering between 2 and 3 stars, so I'm rounding up to 3 stars thanks to a stronger second half and some quality, if at times confusing (to me), writing.

Thanks to BlackCat New York and NetGalley for the digital copy of this book, and sincere apologies for my tardiness in reading it so long after the publication date.

"The place was uninhabitable. Too hard, too dusty, too dry, too poor, out of jobs, out of prospects. The wonder was that they had all stayed so long. For years, like a slowly lifting line of birds, there'd been a slow but steady flight out of town. Finally, inside this single summer, all but eleven people would go. One at a time, in the old brick stores and painted houses the windows were boarded or punched out with stones, eyes blind to a place that so many years ago shed so much blood to claim."

With stunning prose Bonnie Nadzam tells the tale of the dying town of Lions, CO. While there is a central plot in this book, for me the true enjoyment is experienced in the characters and atmosphere. There's a melancholy that runs throughout the book, as the reader shares the sense of loss and fear with the characters in this book who have no choice but to pack up and move on from the place they once knew.

"Lions" had a particular poignancy for me as I reflected on the economic changes currently underway in the U.S.

Highly recommended. 5 stars

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.