"I’m here to say that, in years past, I’ve hated Kenneth Teague so much that I wanted to strangle him. And, in the years since, I’ve loved him better than my own father. Because my daddy lied to me an awful lot, and Ghost lies, sometimes, yeah, to protect us, but he always tells the truth in the end. And this is his club. His family. I owe every good thing in my life to him. So he has my vote.”
Big Son has been live in
the wild for one week, and yesterday, I dropped the compiled edition of Lord
Have Mercy. All 1,609 (holy crap, guys) Kindle pages of it are now
available in full, and I even managed to get a paperback version formatted and
have ordered a proof. I’m not sure yet if I’ll release it as such, because the
print is so very small. I’ll look at my physical copy first before I decide.
But in any event, it’s out there!
It’s done!
I’m still waiting to feel
something besides crushing relief and exhaustion. My mom said, “You should be
proud,” and I’m just…tired. I wanted to recapture the setting and the feeling
of Fearless, but this time there was a plethora of new characters to
utilize, and an overarching enemy plotline to wrap up, and the entire effort
became monumental, and monumentally stressful. The four parts altogether
measured up to a whopping 469,000 words. I’m insane. I’m a crazy person – and
I’ve felt it, physically and mentally, for the past month or so. I’m grateful
that the book exists, but I’d like to sleep for a week, please and thank you.
I’ve been thinking all this past
week that I’d wake up one morning ready to type out a stellar and comprehensive
debriefing for Part Four, but in truth, since I’ve been blogging about the book
for a year at this point, I think I’ve said all there is to say about its
themes and characterization, and my authorly intentions with every installment.
But I will add…and here
come the spoilers…
I think – hope – that it was
clear all along that Remy was going to be found and that Boyle was going to get
his comeuppance. I never care if the happy ending is predictable, nor if the
action enables readers to anticipate what’s to come chapter by chapter. That’s
called narrative follow through, and is an intentional feature rather than a
bug of storytelling. I always deliver happy endings, but this one was buried at
the end of a long, winding, tense road, and, though it’s silly, given I created
her, I’m proud of Ava. Of the role she played. She’s never been a sweet,
innocent darling, and has always been Mercy’s monster counterpart. But, just
like with Mercy, that monster part of her doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her
children fiercely, or that she can’t show them tenderness and leniency.
I think of Mercy and Ava’s
storyline, chiefly its culmination here at the end, as a confirmation of
everything we already know about them, rather than any sort of revelation. There
was none of the usual romantic tension present in a romance novel: the
will-they-won’t-they, the heat, the developing chemistry. In that respect, I
don’t know that it can be classified as a romance, despite their
romantic love being what ultimately saves the day. And without any of that
traditional romantic tension, the whole novel felt like a big risk: will
readers want to return to a relationship that is already well-established and
not in danger of collapsing? I know I enjoy that, as a reader, but in general,
writing a second book about a couple in a series isn’t always a recipe for
success. Which is why, though this is their book, the emotional revelations
happen for other characters.
For Alex, yes, as he wrestles
with the meaning of his bloodline, constantly asking himself if he’s inherently
violent or “bad” thanks to Remy’s DNA. One of several favorite moments for me
was the scene outside the hospital when Tina assures Alex that he’s more like
Mercy than Remy, and that both of them are better men than he ever was. At the
beginning of the novel, Alex would have hated hearing that he was similar to
Mercy, but by the end, is touched and comforted by the knowledge.
I think the most significant
emotional storyline in the novel belongs to Aidan and Ghost. And, by default,
Walsh.
My favorite scene in the whole
novel is the conversation between Aidan and Ghost in the cathedral. From a
strategic standpoint, I loved the contrast of their meetings being “church,”
but this honest and raw moment between them happening in an actual church. But
chiefly, I loved writing that scene because Aidan got to be as upfront and as
vulnerable as he’s ever been with Ghost. And Ghost, well…Ghost is Ghost. Everything
he says in this book is wholly honest, and like Tango tells him a few scenes
earlier, they’ve all realized, finally, that being a good president and being a
good father aren’t the same thing, but that he does love them, in his hardass
way. His club, in turn, has decided to love him back, knowing what they do of
him. He has grown, though; wanting Aidan to be his VP is a huge step, and a
vital one. I know there were readers who were hoping that Aidan would never
forgive him, or maybe even that Ghost would be excommunicated from the club,
but those things were never on the table. The club’s one big messy family, and
they fight, and they want to hate, but they love each other, at the end of the
day.
Walsh’s storyline here is the
culmination of a very slowly-unspooling thread from multiple books. I needed to
keep checking in with him throughout LHM so that his decision at the end made
narrative sense, and I think it does. He was a good VP, but, ultimately, he’s
the Money Man, rather than an ambassador, and Aidan’s affable bad boy charm is,
at this point, a better fit for the role.
In the vein of Fearless,
this book has lots of small, delightful moments that I enjoyed writing: the
Ava/Tenny team-up; Toly’s motion sickness; Ghost’s astonishment over Fox’s
thoughtfulness, getting to see him on an op for the first time.
I feel like, as the weeks go by,
I’ll think of other posts I want to write. Favorite lines I’ll remember; little
nuggets that can be mined for future books. But for now, I’ll leave it here,
and leave you with links. Thank you so much for sticking through a year of a
slow rollout, and for reading. If you get the chance, a review would be greatly
appreciated.
Xo
Lauren
Big Son:
