Finding Mrs. Ford by Deborah Goodrich Royce ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

"A single gunshot cracks the air.  
Seagulls flutter and levitate above the sand as Mrs. Ford's dogs rise, barking.  The echo reverberates across the sea and back to her at the edge.  Mrs. Ford reaches down to pat the dogs. Sound dissipates.  Birds land.  Dogs settle." (p 3)

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

April 2020; Post Hill Press; Post Hill Press
audio, ebook, print (416 pages); thriller

Finding Mrs. Ford well-written novel gives the reader two views of Susan Ford at two different times in her life.  The first view is the summer of 1979.  Susan gets a summer job and meets Annie.  Despite the fact that they have totally different personalities -- Susan is shy and Annie is very flamboyant - they become best friends.  Susan is from a middle-class household and is looking forward to starting her life when she goes to college.  Because she is so shy, she tends to over-think and over-analyze people and situations.  The second view of Mrs. Ford that we see is in Rhode Island in 2014.  The area she lives in is very high class.  Susan is a widow living in a huge estate and living a totally different life than she grew up in.

One day, the FBI comes to her door to ask some questions about people she knew during the summer of 1979.  They want to question her about a man from Iraq where ISIS has just seized control. Sammy Fakhouri, they say, is his name and they have taken him into custody, picked up on his way to her house.  She knew him in 1979 but denies it to the FBI.  After they leave, she realizes that the life that she'd kept hidden from the world about the tragedy of 1979, was back to haunt her and it was time for her to tell the truth.

The first half of the novel is all told in Susan's voice as she describes that long-ago summer and how her life has changed.  The second half is told by Annie.  Her life in Detroit was very different than Susan's and she covered it up by her 'over the top' way of living her life.  Her story is also primarily about the summer of 1979 and gives the reader a totally different view of that time than Susan's view did.  The way that these two stories come together near the end is totally shocking but believable.  Even after we know what happened that summer, there are still more mysteries to reveal and one of them caught me totally by surprise.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book was the 1979 setting in Warren, Michigan.  I lived very near there when I was growing up and have been to many of the places mentioned in this section of the book.  I always enjoy books set in Michigan and this one was close to home.

Overall, if you want a great suspense novel that will keep you guessing until almost the end, give this one a try.  It's exciting,  original and a real page-turner.

Buy Finding Mrs. Ford at Amazon

Named one of the five must-read summer mysteries for 2019 by forbes.com

Named one of the top ten summer reads of 2019 by Good Morning America

Named one of the top fifty summer books of 2019 by Book Riot

About Deborah Goodrich Royce

Deborah began her acting career in 1982 in the lead role of Silver Kane (sister of the legendary, Erica Kane) on ABC's ALL MY CHILDREN. She went on to star in dozens of feature films, television shows, mini-series and TV movies.

FINDING MRS. FORD is her first novel.

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling. She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their family and friends. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter.

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