✱✱ Book Review ✱✱ Lullaby Road by James Anderson

Lullaby Road 

by James Anderson

Winter has come to Route 117, a remote road through the high desert of Utah trafficked only by eccentrics, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world. Local truck driver Ben Jones, still in mourning over a heartbreaking loss, is just trying to get through another season of treacherous roads and sudden snowfall without an accident. But then he finds a mute Hispanic child who has been abandoned at a seedy truck stop along his route, far from civilization and bearing a note that simply reads “Please Ben. Watch my son. His name is Juan” And then at the bottom, a few more hastily scribbled words. “Bad Trouble. Tell no one.”. 
 
Despite deep misgivings, and without any hint of who this child is or the grave danger he’s facing, Ben takes the child with him in his truck and sets out into an environment that is as dangerous as it is beautiful and silent. From that moment forward, nothing will ever be the same. Not for Ben. Not for the child. And not for anyone along the seemingly empty stretch of road known as Route 117.

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Excerpt for Lullaby Road can be found on the publisher's website.

Penguin Random House

Momma Says: 2 stars ⭐⭐

From the synopsis, Lullaby Road sounded like a suspenseful thriller that I could sink my teeth into. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to that expectation. While I appreciate a good description for setting a scene, I found this book to be so overly wordy that it became tedious and so focused on those details that it left little room for the actual story. The only suspense for me lay in when the thriller part of this novel would start. As Ben travels up and down Highway 117 in Utah, we meet a rather odd mix of characters, but other than Ben’s interactions with them, they don’t seem to have much in common or any link to a mystery. On top of that, Ben is traveling with not one, but two children that belong to other people. That, in itself, had me scratching my head from the beginning. Who leaves their child to ride up and down treacherous roads with an acquaintance? There was also a number of rather ambiguous references to what turned out to be a first book that I assume leads into this sequel. Sadly, there is no reference to this in Lullaby Road’s information. I did muddle through out of sheer determination to finish this one and a hope that the story would improve. Had I read the first book in Ben’s story, or had there been a bit of explanation about those references to it, I may have been more invested in this one, but in the end, what I had was a tedious, long-winded story and a conclusion that was convoluted at best. There were also some unanswered questions that were possibly left for a future book, and I realize I'm in the minority here, but considering my experience with this one, I think I’ll skip it. 

**Reader copy received from Blogging for Books and Penguin Random House

Momma😘

Information about the author can be found on the publisher's website.

James Anderson's author page at Penguin Random House

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