Book Review 📚
All Who Wander by Joe Clifford - 4/5 ⭐

My first read from Clifford and I will definitely be reading more. This kept me on the edge of my dead, with mystery and suspense throughout the entire book.

I loved the back and forth between timelines, it really did bring the story to night. There's so many questions throughout (don't worry you'll get answers) and you can't help but wonder what actually happened to Brooke?

The characters descriptions and development were spot on and utterly fantastic. They could not of been done any better. The book was great from start to finish. A nice fast pace that keeps you intrigued and your desperate to finish the book so you can find out that all important question!

Thank you to NetGalley and Square Tire Books for allowing me to read this ARC - this is an HONEST review from my own personal opinion.

Brooke Mulcahy disappeared twenty years ago and her half-brother is still dealing with this. It became a major news story and he has had to deal with all of the people coming forward and making claims that they have seen her. Then Lily knocks on his office door, claiming that she is Brooke’s daughter. After a difficult childhood and years of therapy, Robert’s life is going well. After Lily’s visit his life begins to unravel. Joe Clifford’s All Who Wander is told in alternating timelines. In 1998 Brooke is a college drop-out, involved with drugs and in an abusive relationship. Her mother had earlier run out on the family and then returned with young Bobby in tow. She died a year later, leaving Brooke to deal with a half-brother that she resents and an alcoholic father. Facing drug charges and abuse, she takes off. Her car is later discovered in a ditch and she is never found.

In the present, Robert is a college professor whose marriage is now falling apart. His troubles started with Lily’s appearance. Now he is determined to find the truth of what happened to Brooke. After twenty years he gets little help from the authorities. What he discovers about Brooke and events from his own past is shattering. Clifford’s psychological thriller seamlessly weaves together the past and the present. While Robert has had therapy, there are times that the stress he is under threatens his control. In a final twist, Clifford reveals Brooke’s fate and what actually happened prior to her disappearance, leaving the reader in complete surprise. I would like to thank NetGalley and Square Tire Books for providing this book for my review.

“All Who Wander” explores Brooke Mulcahy”s life in the 1950s before she runs off the road in a snowstorm and disappears, presumed dead. Brooke’s chapters alternate with those of her younger step-brother Bobby, now known as Robert, an esteemed college professor in the 1990s. Someone has presented herself as Brooke’s daughter Lily, which causes Robert to re-examine all that he knows about Brooke’s disappearance 40 years earlier in an attempt to determine the veracity of Lily’s claim. Joe Clifford has added some creative twists and turns to the story to keep readers entranced until the story’s resolution.

I wanted to like this book. I wanted to care what happened to Brooke. I wanted to care about anything,

I didn’t. To all of the above. Why?

Unlikable characters. Brooke is pretty horrible. Then she takes off and leaves behind her father and brother. Not a close family. She calls her brother defective as if anything is his fault. If she were a child maybe she could be forgiven. She’s an adult abusing a child. Robert is a big old conflict. Haunted by the disappearance of a sister he admits he barely knew. He can’t figure out if he should call his sister, half sister, or stepsister. He goes back and forth on each one without seeming to know. Half-sister, in case anyone cares. He doesn’t seem to.

A dragging plot. There were a lot of scenes that could have been left out. They only seemed to be meant to remind us how horrible a character was. I hadn’t forgotten.

Animal cruelty. See above.

This book fascinated me as it's a thriller and a domestic family drama all in one! Told in a "now" and "then" format, the novel shows us Brooke going missing in a snowstorm after her car crashed (then), and her step-brother, Bobby trying to piece together what really happened even as his marriage is imploding (now). Brooke was wild, experimenting with drugs, loser boyfriends, and just tolerating younger nerdish Bobby. But Bobby--now Robert-- is a distinguished doctor, receiving an NEH award, and believing his wife and young son are the solutions to his crazy upbringing. Of course the two worlds collide, and Bobby desperately seeks answers when Brooke's supposed-daughter, Lily shows up at his door unexpectedly. A wild ride for sure but great fun!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Gripping, thrilling and shocking!!
All who wander is my first novel by this author and I absolutely loved it. I highly recommend this book for fans who love mystery, thrill and shocking endings.

All Who Wander by Joe Cliffird was a wild, psychological thriller. My first book from this author came just in time for fall and the season for spooky, strange thrillers.

I highly recommend this book for readers of Alice Feeney or Lucy Foley. I can’t wait to read more from Cliffird.

Is she dead or is she alive? That is the major premise for this different type of mystery that captured me from the beginning. With a great writing style and effective character development (which definitely gives you feelings about each of the characters) and a narrative that is somewhat unreliable, I found this book staying in my mind, whether I was actually reading it or not. My only caveat, and I realize this is personal preference, is that I could’ve done without a lot of the sexual depictions throughout. This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I will check out some of his other books, since I enjoyed this one. Thank you to NetGalley for the advance read copy.

3.5. Although this is not my usual drama (unsolved mystery of family member) I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The story is about a 20-year old disappearance of a young woman with a colored past and lots of life complications. Her younger half brother becomes interested in getting closure on what happened to Brooke and embarks on a journey to re-open the case. Story is interesting; character development is good, and the plot continued to engage me until the end. Recommend the book.

All Who Wander by Joe Cliffird sounded like the perfect thriller for me. But I did not connect with the writing and decided to not keep reading it. Thank you for the early copy!

I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

All Who Wander is my first book by author Joe Clifford, a dark mystery that takes the reader through dual time periods. One is a countdown of days before Brooke goes missing, (ostensibly who the story is about) while the other time frame is seen through her half-brother's eyes about 20 years later. Robert, aka Bobby, aka 'fecto (short for defective) has never gotten over the trauma of his missing half-sibling. When a female college student makes contact with Robert claiming to be his long-lost sister's daughter, things start to spin out of control. Robert now a small college professor starts to spiral as does his entire life he so carefully constructed after his dysfunctional upbringing.

The reader can feel Robert slipping mentally, particularly when he starts referring to himself in the plural. There are many suspects that could easily be the reason for Brooke's disappearance so the reader continues to wonder why Robert feels so guilty about it when he was just a young teenager when she went missing. I was pre-cringing over what I thought was going to happen. I also was misdirected on by who (kudos to Joe Clifford) and continued to try and sleuth out the details.

The ending is quite satisfactory, if not shocking. The author already knows per his notes and quotes what things happen in the book that will set some readers off.

Thank you to Square Tire Books and Swell Media for access to an early e-copy. All opinions are my own.

The plot seemed very promising but I felt myself being unable to delve deeply into.the book. Too much description and felt slow paced at points.

Enormously Atmospheric..
Secrets, lies and unexplained events surround a mysterious disappearance in a rural and snow bound Vermont. Twenty one years later, that same case is once again brought into the limelight and lives may well begin to unravel but will secrets out? Enormously atmospheric and emotionally charged psychological suspense, often dark and haunting and peppered liberally with a keenly observed narrative and often unexpected twists.

Why do we allow others to manipulate us with their “truth”.

In "All Who Wander", we travel between the present and the late 1990’s, just days before twenty-year-old Brooke Mulcahy disappeared.

Brooke lived with her father in a small Massachusetts town. He didn’t know how to deal with her wild behavior, drug abuse, and affection for the wrong men. Her mother, who had abandoned them a decade earlier, returned on the brink of death, accompanied by a baby boy. Brooke understood her mother’s desire to escape, but harbored resentment toward her newfound half-brother, Robert, or "Bobby." The narrative in the present unfolds through the lens of Robert, now a thirty-six-year-old civil engineering professor, husband, and father.

When a young woman, claiming to be the daughter of Brooke comes to visit Robert, his life starts to unravel. Brooke’s disappearance was considered a cold case, as her body was never found. However, even authorities believed that she was a victim of a known serial killer. The problem for Robert though, was that it brought back excruciating childhood memories of his life as "Bobby".

This intoxicating novel transports us to uncharted territories of human emotion and psyche. The characters are meticulously crafted, and we understand their motivations. Author Joe Clifford writes with haunting clarity, and we can feel the intense emotion of the characters as well as the smell of the stench and sweat of everyday life. The conclusion hits you as a complete surprise, and from start to finish, this book captivates, refusing to release its grip.

I seldom give a book the highest rating of “5 Bookmarks", but "All Who Wander" meets the necessary criteria. I look forward to reading more from this author.

My first from this author and definitely not my last! Wow! This is a compelling and dysfunctional psychological thriller. It is told in alternating narratives. Brooke disappears one snowy night after her car veers off the side of the road. She tells her story prior to her disappearance with so many upended wrongs in her life. As her life falls over the edge of destruction with an abusive boyfriend, she must also deal with an alcoholic father.

Even more bone-chilling after Lily appears claiming she is Brooke's daughter. Brooke's brother, Robert, must deal with the matter after 21 years have passed since her disappearance. You are unable to put it down in order to find out what happened to Brooke. Robert has quite the story from his own past.
Thank you NetGalley and Square Tire Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

The book didn’t work very well as a thriller because there seemed too much information added about unimportant thoughts etc and this seemed to drain any tension for me.

A dark psychological thriller that I found lacking… in what I can’t pinpoint, but the ending felt kind of sudden for one.
And I felt that the story dragged at times, and the characters were a little flat. I would have liked to know for instance what Bobby went to therapy for, it was never really explored what was ”broken” in him, even though it’s referenced serveral times.
It was good in describing difficult family dynamics though.

went into this book blind, not reading the blurb or anything else. All Who Wander by Joe Clifford is a dark story into the dysfunctional family. The book started off well for me with a woman on the run in a blizzard who then crashes her car. We do not find out her fate until the end.

Brooke, is the woman in the car. Her mother pcked up and left without a trace when Brooke was young. She left her with a distant alcoholic father in a dysfunctional situation. During this time, Brooke meets Mike, who also comes from a mess of a home. Ten years later, her mother returns with a child, Bobby, who is now Brooke's step brother. The two children are distant, Brooke angry that Bobby was able to receive her moms love for ten years and she wasn't. A year after the mom returns, she dies from cancer leaving Brooke and Bobby with the alcoholic father.

The book explores the way the psyche adapts to dysfunctional situations and the outcome of such situations. It was well written and interesting, but I felt it dragged on so much. I enjoyed the book but unless you are into domestic dysfunction, I wouldn't recommend it. The ending for me was totally underwhelming after reading so much about their lives. This was an ARC. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley. I truly appreciate the copy.

The plot and setting to begin with had promising premise: woman on the run, high stakes, country I know. Settled in for a thrilling ride
However, I was thrown off by the telling of the story in broken sentences, information dumps, and feeling that the reader was being steered to certain feelings, thoughts, and experiences. This novel rambled on so much and didn't even continue to the main plot at times. I was dragged away by the mundane activities about 98% of the time! How is that a thriller?
I am sorry to be so brutal with what started out so anticipated. I could not finish this story although I did want to know if the protagonist ultimately triumphed over daunting odds.