What Happened to the McCrays?, a review by Shelley

posted in: Shelley | 2

🏠🏠🏠🏠 1/2
What Happened to the McCrays?
Tracey Lang

Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Celadon Books
353 Pages
Amazon | Goodreads | Bookshop.org

Genres: Women’s Fiction | General Fiction

Family dramas (when it isn’t my own family) are my favourite stories and this one packs a punch. After more than two years Kyle McCray goes home because he has to help his dad recover from a stroke. Across the road lives his ex-wife Casey and her brother Wyatt. We are then taken on a journey from Kyle’s teenage years to the present and in between we find out why he and Casey divorced and what actually happened to the McCrays.

This was my first book by the author and I can understand why this and her previous novels have done so well. This book is about a marriage, a family and a community and Lange wrote about all three perfectly. Having been born and raised in Toronto, Canada I played hockey throughout my childhood and her depiction of the game was spot on. The answer to the question, what happened to the McCray’s was figured out by me pretty early on but when I got to the reveal it still hit me hard. I love it when an author can do that. This is a very emotional story and I felt what all the characters were going through in their different ways in my heart and in my soul.

Poignant, heartbreaking, and hopeful, What Happened to the McCrays is a story of loss and acceptance of that loss while trying to heal from the inside out. It is also a story I will be thinking about for a long time. Although I loved the story and the writing, the ending was a little too perfect for me, so four and a half stars rounded down.

This is my 900th NetGalley review. I am working on getting to 1000 by the end of 2025.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

 

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2 Responses

  1. Jodi Thompson Carr

    Congratulations, Shelley! Your review of my debut novel, Lunch Ladies, was one of my first and remains a favorite. Thanks for calling out both the complexity and the humor. And for tagging on a picture of a dancing Chris Farley! Perfect.

  2. Lou Kemp

    The Mystery Review Crew’s new review service is a wonderful one. Great info in the reviews and the things a reader taking a chance on something new need to know.

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