Review of The Last Prejudice by Bill Blodgett with Giveaway

Welcome to the review tour for The Last Prejudice by Bill Blodgett. I previously featured an excerpt over on another blog at Books to Light Your Fire. Today, I am sharing with you my review of this book about family, love, loss, and understanding. First I am sharing an excerpt with you. Then I invite you to grab a box of tissues and download your own copy after you read my review. I think anyone who has gone through family drama of any kind can relate to this story. It's well worth reading. There's also a giveaway at the end for you to enter. More chances to win are available as you follow the tour. Please also leave a comment or a question for the author. Thank you for taking the time to stop by today. 

Please note that affiliate links are present in this post. Should you make a purchase through one of these, I may earn a small commission to help me support my websites at no additional cost to you. Also, I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Neither of these factors played any role in my thoughts and opinions.

The Last Prejudice

When Ed Connor slips into a coma his wife, children and their families arrive at the hospital to await his recovery. They gather around his bedside and begin reminiscing about the good old days but as the hours pass stress begins to take its toll causing long held family secrets and unresolved issues to surface. A disagreement over a DNR order put Ed’s sons, Steve and Peter, at odds and the family speculates that their anger is really about an event that led to their falling out when they were teens. While in his coma, Ed exists somewhere between life and death and wonders what he could have done differently when Steve tried to tell him that he was gay. The family is drawn into the bitter battle between Peter and Steve, and they fear things will never be right between them again. It’s now up to the family to devise an intervention as a last ditch effort to bring these two battling brothers back into the family.

Read an excerpt:

The coffee cup shattered when it hit the white porcelain kitchen sink. She had just poured it and added a splash of half and half before she looked out the kitchen window to check on him. Oh well, if it makes him happy. Some things I just can’t change, she thought. Then he slumped over the steering wheel of the lawn mower. Fortunately the mower’s safety mechanism shut the mower down when he fell to the side and onto the newly mowed lawn.

The shattering of the cup had barely quieted before she was through the screen door and at his side. She pulled him the rest of the way off the mower and felt for a pulse. She found it. Thank God.

“Ed! Ed, can you hear me? Don’t do this to me, you stubborn old fart. I told you not to be mowing this damn lawn.”

His eyes opened when she cradled his head in her lap, and he mumbled something. She leaned closer. “… broken…” was all she heard.

“Broken? Ed, what’s broken?”

When he didn’t respond, she pulled back to look at him. His eyes went vacant and then slowly rolled back and closed.

“Help me, please… Anyone, please help me!”

She shrieked until someone heard her. Within minutes Beth, her neighbor, was at her side. “Jan, my God, what’s happened?”

“Call 911.”

Read another excerpt here. 

Buy links

Amazon / Kindle / Barnes and Noble / Nook 

**My thoughts**

As I am reading this book, I am in the middle of the anniversary of my own father being in a coma. While my father had a brain bleed and not a stroke, a lot of those medical moments are extremely familiar to me. My father also had a DNR. The other differences are my mother has Alzehimer's and was unaware of what was happening with my father, and I only have one sister with whom I get along. But all of that emotion with making DNR decisions and still going through family history and drama is quite familiar. I found myself tearing up and crying throughout reading this book. I think even if you haven't been through this kind of a family situation, you may still need a tissue to read this book.

I think all families experience some form of dysfunction, but it varies from family to family. In this case, Ed, the father, didn't necessarily handle his son Steve coming out to him in the best way. Steve's brother Pete has been unable to handle him being gay, for quite selfish reasons, only he has never explained this to anyone else. It's sad that in this day and age this kind of battle has to continue, but it does. You really get to witness the pain on both sides of the issue.

And then there is that pain of trying to figure out what to do when a loved one has a DNR, when you feel like family business is unfinished, when you're trying to let go. It's not easy. What I liked in this book was how you got a sense of this pain from two different sides. You witness how the family members are dealing with Ed's situation. But you also get Ed's perspective from the other side. We often hear that people encounter loved ones on the other side, whether they are coming back to earth or moving on to heaven. Ed spends time with his first wife, who had been taken from him by cancer, and with his own father, as he reflects back on his own life.

I think this book is one of those that is going to make you think about your own life and family, even if you aren't dealing with exactly the same situations. What has divided you from someone in your family? How can you make it right before it's too late? 

About Bill Blodgett

Bill still lives in the community where he met and married his lovely wife, Janice. Actually, she lived around the corner from him and they both ignored each other until their teen years when the hormone thing kicked in and they suddenly realized that the cute little girl skipping rope and that goofy boy riding a bike had both grown up.

They are the proud parents of April and Lindsay; both of whom are now married. April married Darren and they have two beautiful boys, Brian and Owen. Lindsay married Tim and they have a beautiful little girl, Kailyn.

Bill enjoys hiking, kayaking, camping with his family, golfing, making candles, and restoring his antique European sports car, a 1972 MGB.

They say to write from what you know, so he does. He writes of love, life and relationships.

Find him online:
www.billblodgett.com

https://www.facebook.com/authorbillblodgett

Bill will be awarding an digital copy of Unrequited to 5 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway