Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Gallery Books for gifting me a digital ARC of this true crime memoir by April Balascio. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 5 stars!
In 2009, April was searching online for the truth about her father, Edward Wayne Edwards. She was researching cold cases of murders that happened in the many towns they lived in as a family. She came across the story of the "Sweetheart Murders," and memories of her father's possible connection came flooding back. She picked up the phone and called the detective in charge.
This is a gripping story of growing up in an abusive, dysfunctional family, and April's conviction that her dad could also be a murderer. It's meticulously written and researched, brutally honest, and horrifying. Told in alternating chapters detailing her dad's notorious criminal past and her recollections of her childhood, I appreciated how April told all the stories as she knew them. Not only the mean, sadistic man who pitted his children against each other, brutalized them, played horrible pranks, but also his times of kindness and love. It's hard to fathom those conflicting emotions, yet knowing the right thing to do was to pick up that phone. She showed her strength and character; remarkable with the childhood she experienced. April is a hero to many families by giving them some peace; here's hoping that she and her siblings have that same peace.
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