A Reader From Australia

Here's the PERFECT REVIEW from a reader - not a reviewer, not a critic, but an ACTUAL READER - from Australia, who posts his reaction to THE PLUNDER ROOM on Goodreads. As I writer, if I've touched one soul, I've done my job. Hallalujah, and thank you, dear readers!

This isn't what I'd usually read, and Im not sure if I'd have picked it up if I didnt win it from Goodreads, but I ended up quite liking it :) It took me ages to read this, but not because it was bad - I just havent had time, which sucks because I really loved the characters.
The description is so rich and the characters are so strong, and you really get a sense of their personality and quirks. I initially thought this was just going to be a book about a Southern family coming to terms with loss, and that there'd be a lot of mysteries and sinister stuff in the Plunder Room, but it was a lot different than I expected.
It is about family and legacy, but it's much deeper, darker and more complex than that. Each character has their own struggles, and some characters have more than a few skeletons in the closet. It's about family dynamics, and how you can be related to someone yet know so little about them. And of course, it shows how honour is so unimportant to people these days, as all the characters in the book are continually compared to the late and great Edward Randol Duncan.
Without spoiling it, there's a really sinister subplot involving Annie Harkin, and although I kinda guessed what she might have been up to, I didn't want to believe it : it's interesting, because while she seems initially innocent and gorgeous, she turns out to be quite despicable - while Jupe and Jerod seem seedy from the outset, but their story was not as worrying as I initially thought, and they redeemed themselves in the end.
It's really nice to see the whole family come together in the end, and this book is just a really great character study. There's no sugarcoating it - at times these family members hate each other, and they don't hold back in showing it, but injuries, loss and shady dealings bring them all back together in the end, and they sort of learn to love each other without it being at all cheesy.