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| Categories | Genre Fiction |
| Author | Liz Moore |
| Publisher | Riverhead Books; Standard Edition (December 1, 2020) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 496 pages |
| Item Weight | 13.6 ounces |
| Dimensions |
5.08 x 1.23 x 8 inches |
I. Book introduction
Long Bright River by Liz Moore is a gripping thriller set in a Philadelphia neighborhood devastated by the opioid crisis. When Kacey, a struggling addict, goes missing, her sister Mickey—a police officer—becomes obsessed with finding her, especially as a string of murders rocks the area. Blending suspense with a powerful family drama, this novel explores addiction, sisterhood, and the inescapable pull of the past.
Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn’t be more different. Then one of them goes missing.
In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.
Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey’s district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit–and her sister–before it’s too late.
Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters’ childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.
About the Author (Liz Moore)
Liz Moore (born May 25, 1983) is an American author. After a brief time as a musician in New York City, which inspired her first novel, Moore shifted her focus to writing. She received the 2015 Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy in Rome, and her novel 2012 Heft was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Liz Moore teaches in the MFA program at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Moore’s novel The God of the Woods was selected as the Barnes & Noble Book Club pick in July 2024. It went on to be shortlisted for the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year award. It was also featured as a Book of the Month pick in its initial month of publication.
II. Reviewer: Long Bright River by Liz Moore
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1. MEREDITH reviews for Long Bright River
Long Bright River is a beautifully written and powerful story about two sisters and the destruction of addiction.
Mickey and Kacey, daughters of addicts, take two very different paths in life. As children, they were inseparable, as adults they are estranged. Mickey becomes a cop, Kacey an addict.
When young female addicts start being murdered, Mickey fears even more for Kacey’s life. When Mickey discovers that Kacey is missing, she investigates putting her life, her son, and her job in danger.
Mickey is the narrator. She is the good, reliable sister. At the same time, she is also self-righteous and prideful. Her fear of being hurt has caused her to lead a life of isolation. With every OD she hears of, she fears she will hear her sister’s name called. As her walls come down, her deepest and darkest secrets are revealed. Her strong facade slowly peels away revealing a scared and hurt woman who has not recovered from the traumas of her childhood.
Subtly written about the love between sisters and the destructive nature of addiction, Moore has created characters who are complex, flawed, and broken. She doesn’t impose any judgment but rather captures the realities of addiction.
I loved everything about this book. It is not easy to read and it made me very uncomfortable and emotional at times. The final sentence is disturbing and impactful–it brought tears to my eyes. The characterization is extremely strong–Mickey and Kacey remind me of people I know. Moore brings Kensington, a neighborhood in Philadelphia ravaged by poverty and addiction, to life. She captures both the devastation and glimmers of hope of the people who inhabit Kensington. The strong love for the neighborhood shines through in the characters and highlights the goodness that exists in the darkness.
“People with promise, people dependent and depended upon, people loving and beloved, one after another, in a line, in a river, no fount and no outlet, a long bright river of departed souls.”
I received an ARC of this book from Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
2. LINDSAY L reviews for Long Bright River
4.5 stars!
An extremely well-written, gut-wrenching, powerful story about addiction and the bond of sisters.
Raised by their less than interested grandmother, Mickey and Kacey grew up looking after one another. They were as close as sisters could be. As a teenager, Kacey mixes with the wrong crowd and becomes a drug addict leading to a life on the streets. The sisters become strangers to one another. Mickey joins the local police force but can’t ignore the constant tension of worry that one day she will find Kacey in a bad state on one of her work calls. Will Kacey ever get the help and support she needs? Will the sisters ever be as close as they once were?
I was invested in this story from page one. The story is told through Mickey’s perspective and it is intense. Mickey is a strong yet vulnerable character who I loved. What she endured while keeping her loyalty to her sister was heart wrenching. The bond of sisterhood is a strong one. The pace and flow of the book was excellent – it kept me fully engaged from start to finish. The writing was smooth and engrossing. I had a constant sense of tension and dread in my stomach in wonder of what Kacey’s outcome would be. I truly felt for Mickey and all that she had to endure.
This was a Traveling Sister read with Brenda. We both LOVED it and highly recommend!
Thank you to Edelweiss for providing me with an ARC!
3. KAREN reviews for Long Bright River
4.5
What a page turner!
Riveting story of two sisters living in the Philadelphia area that is being rocked by the opioid crisis! Mickey,is a cop and her younger sister Kacey is an addict who is living and working on the street. Kacey has been missing as a string of mysterious murders start taking place so as Mickey walks the street on her police beat she’s on the search for her sister.
This story goes back and forth from Now and Then, as we are also taken back to their childhood.
Story of sisters, family, addiction..and a mystery.
Loved it!
4. LYNNP reviews for Long Bright River
Inside Look At Addiction & Police Work
Long Bright River is a detailed story of addiction, family dysfunction, predatory behavior & police work. Yet, it is also about love, bonds, friendship & belonging. The chapters are split into “Then” & “Now”, which is helpful as the story is constantly moving back & forth in time. The ” Then” chapters really illustrate how choices have consequences & impact the present day. So many instances where if just one thing had been done differently, everything else that followed would have had a different outcome. The theme of addiction really reminded me of the TV series “Nurse Jackie” in that you come to understand it as a true illness that has not only physical, but often has psychological & biological roots. It’s complex & not just something to be judged as a failure of will.
The amount of detail & recount, while it did serve the narrative, got to be a little weighed down in spots. The book might’ve been about 50-100 pages shorter if not for that. But that did make it an immersive read. Definitely not a feel-good story. It makes you yearn for something (anything!) good to happen for the characters. And it ultimately does, but not with the triumph that some readers might prefer.
Overall, I’m glad to have read this book and would certainly recommend it. The writing is excellent & the characters stay with you. Enjoy!
5. ERIN LOCKARD reviews for Long Bright River
It took me a while to read this book having spent 12 years living in Fishtown and working at hospitals encountering victims of Kensington’s opioid crisis. Liz Moore handled the narrative well weaving in the story of one family set in a changing city. The book was heavy without being heavy handed. Mickey’s journey lead by deep love and a desire to do right created a hopeful story arc.
6. BETH reviews for Long Bright River
Slow to start, the story is well worth the wait
LONG BRIGHT RIVER is slow for a while at first. But you want to keep going anyhow. It’s well written and obviously setting up a story that will be worth your while. It turns out to be unputdownable.
Most of the book is centered on Michaela’s search for her sister, Kacey. Michaela is a cop; Kacey is a drug addict living on the streets. The story is told in alternating THEN and NOW chapters. So you gradually understand more and more of the sisters’ background and how the NOW came to be.
LONG BRIGHT RIVER is full of mysteries and unexpected results and solutions. The answers I expected were most often incorrect.
I am so glad I didn’t read other reviews of this story before I read it. If I had, I probably would have been given synopses of the story and been unable, then, to anticipate its mysteries as the author had intended.
This is the first time I’ve given five stars to a book that is slow to start. Believe me, it will be worth your while to read and remember it.
However, I don’t add this to my list of “favorites” because of its awkward dialog style, with em dashes used to indicate quotations rather than quotation marks. Quotation marks were invented to aid readability. It is, therefore, rude not to use them.
7. DIANE PATTERSON reviews for Long Bright River
THE BEST BOOK OF 2020
Present-day Kensington is a mile from the Delaware River, in Philadelphia. Abandoned houses populate the neighborhood. About a third of the storefronts are shuttered. Addiction is rampant in Kensington, as is prostitution. Overdoses happen frequently. There were over 900 overdose victims in Kensington, last year. The unconscious in Kensington are such a common sight that they often don’t receive a second glance. Very few have the strength, luck & perseverance to get sober & stay clean. Kacey lives on the streets in the vise of addiction.
The first time Kacey overdosed on heroin she was 16. Mickey (her older sister) was 17. They were both being raised by Gee (their ornery grandmother) whose parenting was unfit in many ways. It was not a loving & affectionate functional home. Gee’s only daughter (their mother) died in her early 20’s from an overdose. Their mother used narcotics while pregnant with Kacey. She started using after Mickey was born. Kacey went through withdrawal as a newborn. She was only a baby when their mother died.
Kacey is a junkie & a hooker. She uses heroin, pills & booze. Mickey is a cop. Their paths cross occasionally. They haven’t spoken in years, but Mickey always keeps an eye on Kacey while she’s on patrol. Kacey’s been close to death so many times & the men she hooks up with aren’t exactly choirboys. Her absence on “the Avenue” has Mickey worried.
Potent deadly fentanyl has found it’s way into most of the heroin & it’s killing even the most experienced users. There’s been a string of homicides & Mickey has been made aware of a cop who demands sexual favors from women in exchange for letting them go. She hasn’t told her colleagues about her missing sister, because she’s not certain she can trust them. Is there police sexual assault & corruption in Kensington???!!!
8. FARRAH reviews for Long Bright River
4.9 ⭐ for being so touching and relevant.
I definitely wouldn’t call this a thriller. It sorta has a small mystery but mostly it’s an emotional story about a family’s struggles with addiction.
Told entirely from Mickey’s point if view.
She’s a cop in Kensington, Philadelphia.
Estranged from her sister – a heroin addict – but she is able to keep an eye on her since she patrols the area (streets) that her sister frequents (works)
Then her sister mysteriously goes missing, while at the same time there is a killer targeting the young women in the community.
I realize this story is fiction but Kensington is a real place and has a shockingly sad amount of people who are opioid addicts. I googled it and 1150 people died from overdose last year in Philadelphia. This was a very difficult book to read, knowing so many are struggling in similar ways.
I’ve reduced 0.1 ⭐ just because I have a small, silly pet peeve with authors that don’t use enough contractions. It makes a sentence sound robotic to me.
🙂✔ I’m going for a walk but it’s cold out so I won’t be long.
🤖❌ I am going for a walk but it is cold out so I will not be long.
9. JANB reviews for Long Bright River
Update:
4.5 stars
This book proves the fact that timing is everything. Apparently I am more of a mood reader than I thought, and Christmas week with a very ill dog (now recovered) was the wrong timing. I normally love a slow burn but I set it aside. I recently picked it up again, and this time I was totally engaged and captivated. I flew through it in one day and ended up loving it, confirming that the author remains one of my favorites.
I’m still not a fan of the lack of quotation marks, and for that reason I rounded down. Highly recommended!
Original review:
At 25% (124 pages) I am setting this aside for now. Perhaps the timing is wrong but this slow burn was too slow for my taste with pages and pages of musings and repetitiveness about the MC’s sister, who has a drug problem, and their dysfunctional childhood.
The bleakness and the lack of quotation marks adds to it’s lack of appeal.
Perhaps I’ll revisit it another day. This might be a better winter read than a Christmas week read.
I received a digital copy of the book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
10. LIZ reviews for Long Bright River
This book is a wonderful mix of family drama and mystery. Mickey is a beat cop in Philadelphia. Her sister is a drug addict, who has gone missing. When bodies of young women start turning up strangled, Kasey’s disappearance becomes even more concerning.
The book alternates between the present day and the sisters’ youth. We get to see the background and the influences that turned each girl into the woman she is in the present.
Moore captures the feel of Kensington, a rough, down on its heels part of Philadelphia. This isn’t a fast paced mystery. Instead, it’s a character driven book about the ripple effects of addiction on family, friends and neighborhood. Everyone felt very real to me. I found myself totally invested in Mickey, especially when she’s torn between the love for her son and her sister.
As the various twists are revealed, my anger increased. If you need a feel good ending, this isn’t the book for you. It’s way too realistic for that. Although we at least are given glimmers of hope.
The narrator, Allyson Ryan, perfectly captures Mickey’s somewhat detached persona. As an introverted child, I felt a real affinity for Mickey.
III. Long Bright River Quotes by Liz Moore
The best book quotes from Long Bright River by Liz Moore
“Every grown woman I knew had a job—or, more often, multiple jobs. About half of the men did.”
“People with promise, people dependent and depended upon, people loving and beloved, one after another, in a line, in a river, no fount and no outlet, a long bright river of departed souls.”
“I wouldn’t listen. I wanted everything to stay as it was. I was more afraid of the truth than the lie. The truth would change the circumstances of my life. The lie was static. The lie was peaceful. I was happy with the lie.”
“This was the secret I learned that day: none of them want to be saved. They all want to sink backward toward the earth again, to be swallowed by the ground, to keep sleeping. There is hatred on their faces when they are roused from the dead.”
“Who on earth can explain, in words alone, the great gutting tenderness of holding your child in your arms? The animal feeling of it—the baby’s soft muzzle, the baby’s new skin (which throws into relief the wear your own has endured), the little hand reaching up to your face, searching for family. The quick small pats, light as moths, that land on your cheek and chest.”
“In a moment of clarity, once, Kacey told me that time spent in addiction feels looped. Each morning brings with it the possibility of change, each evening the shame of failure. The only task becomes the seeking of the fix. Every dose is a parabola, low-high-low; and every day a series of these waves; and then the days themselves become chartable, according to how much time, in sum, the user spends in comfort or in pain; and then the months.”
“But there’s a difference, I believe, between two consenting adults making a thoughtful transaction and the kind of bargain that happens on the Ave, where some of the women would do anything for anyone, where some of the women need a fix so badly that they can’t say no or yes.”
“I’ve had a certain bad habit ever since I was a child. I duck what I can’t bring myself to acknowledge, turn away from anything that causes me to be ashamed, run away from it rather than addressing it. I am a coward, in this way.”
“Since I was a small child, I have always tried to maintain my dignity in every situation. At work now, I strive to maintain my professional dignity. At home, with Thomas, I strive to maintain a certain parental dignity, to protect him from overhearing anything that might upset him, or anything untoward. Therefore, because it feels undignified, I have never enjoyed the feeling of anyone else worrying about me or being concerned for my well-being, preferring instead to give the impression that I am always fine, and that I have everything under control. Largely, I believe this image to be an honest one.”
“The knowledge that there was once a person in the world who loved me more than anything.”
“—Connor can do bad things, Kacey says, but he’s not all bad. Almost nobody is. I have nothing to say to this. I picture Mrs. Mahon, her hand tipping back and forth in the air above the chessboard. They’re bad and good both, all the pieces.”
“The hardest cases, I think–perhaps the most dangerous ones–are the friends of the Laffertys’ (the evil ones). People like Sargeant Ahearn, who has possibly known for years about what goes on in Kensington. And he’ll never be fired, never be questioned, never even be disciplined. He’ll go on with his daily routine, showing up for work, casually abusing his power in ways that will have lasting effects on individuals and communities, on the whole city of Philadelphia, for years.
It’s the Ahearns of the world who scare me.”“Is there confusion in the little isle? Let what is broken so remain. The Gods are hard to reconcile: ’Tis hard to settle order once again. There is confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Long labour unto aged breath, Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.”
“Some people do have trouble with Kensington, but to me the neighborhood itself has become like a relative, slightly problematic but dear in the old-fashioned way that that word is sometimes used, treasured, valuable to me.”
“was more afraid of the truth than the lie. The truth would change the circumstances of my life. The lie was static. The lie was peaceful. I was happy with the lie.”
“I have never enjoyed the feeling of anyone else worrying about me or being concerned for my well-being, preferring instead to give the impression that I am in all ways fine, and that I have everything under control. Largely, I believe this image to be an honest one.”
“nine hundred overdose victims in Kensington last year. Not one of them Kacey.”
“This was the secret I learned that day: None of them want to be saved. They all want to sink backward toward the earth again, to be swallowed by the ground, to keep sleeping. There is hatred on their faces when they are roused from the dead. It’s a look I’ve seen dozens of times, now, on the job: standing over the shoulder of some poor EMT whose job it is to reel them back in from the other side. It was the look on Kacey’s face that day as her eyes opened, as she cursed, as she wept. It was directed at me.”
“It happened again and again. Kacey quickly got worse. Now she seemed permanently glazed over, a glossiness to her eyes, a flush to her cheeks, her speech slow, her tongue heavy, her beautiful laugh nearly gone. Seeing her this way, I often had the urge to clap my hands, loudly, in front of her face. To hug her tightly, to squeeze out of her whatever darkness was making her want to dull her life so completely. I missed my bright little sister, the quick-witted Kacey, dashing here and there, always alight with energy; the fierce small fiery version of the teenager who seemed now to exist in a world of unending, unrelenting dusk.”
“But if I was self-conscious about my appearance, I was proud of my intelligence, which I thought of, in secret, as something that rested quietly inside me, a sleeping dragon guarding a store of wealth that no one, not even Gee, could take away. A weapon I would one day deploy to save us both: myself and my sister.”
“right now. I look at him in the stark light of the lamp hanging on a chain above our booth. It’s a Tiffany lamp. Louis Comfort Tiffany, interestingly, spent some time here in Pennsylvania when he attended the military academy in West Chester. The lamp above us, though, does not look well made. It looks like an interrogation light in”
“a city called Philly can’t let any of its infrastructure go unabbreviated”
“This was the secret I learned that day: None of them want to be saved. They all want to sink backward toward the earth again, to be swallowed by the ground, to keep sleeping. There is hatred on their faces when they are roused from”
“My implication, of course, was that it is the decisions that I have made in life that have placed me on my specific path—decisions, not chance.”
“Without her, my loneliness became outrageous, a low hum, an extra limb, a tin can that dragged behind me wherever I went.”
“My implication, of course, was that it is the decisions that I have made in life that have placed me on my specific path—decisions, not chance. And that although our childhood may not have been idyllic, it sufficiently prepared one of us, at least, for a productive life.”
“tell myself, then one day I might pass them on to Thomas.”
“The deceased are digital ghosts, the last posts they ever made buried beneath a tidal wave of grief, of commands to Rest In Peace, of in-fighting between friends and enemies who claim that half the people on the page are fake, whatever that means. Their girlfriends still posting happy birthday baby two years after they’re gone, as if the Internet were a crystal ball, a Ouija board, a portal to the afterlife. In a way, I suppose, it is.”
“it is your responsibility to create a greater network of friends and family than what you currently have. If not for yourself, then for Thomas.”
Excerpted from Long Bright River by Liz Moore
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