Barbara Avon's Revived: A review

Barbara Avon’s Revived
A Review
 
            Avon sums up her main character best by stating that Steven Gold was a man who turned heads. Men in suits wanted to be him. Women wanted to know him. Little old ladies wished to adopt him to fill the void of missing grandsons. 
 
            But Steven Gold has secrets, many secrets in fact. Behind each of his successes–his marriage of eleven years to a beautiful woman, his career as an award-winning journalist–there is a dark secret waiting to catch up with him. And, after a close encounter with death, these secrets, or these bodies rather, decide they’ve waited long enough in the shadows and draw near to claim Gold as their own. 
 
            Using vivid imagery, Avon paints pictures of an idyllic life, but even from the beginning, hidden in every scene, is just a hint of the macabre or of something not quite right. At first, the reader focuses on Steven’s wife Cassie, thinking that the mystery revolves around her as she battles decaying mental health and slowly falls into hallucinations and delusion. Everything changes, however, after Steven’s accident where a head injury causes him to enter delusions of his own. 
 
            As Steven’s visions grow more intense, the reader is forced to weigh this man, not only by his appearance but by the content of his character as well. Is he as truly as golden as his name? Or is there more corruption than shine? 
 
            This book was a good, quick read. The characters are likable and convincing–you find yourself rooting for them even, perhaps, when you should not. Avon does well to portray the difficulties of living with a mental illness and the complications that this can bring–especially when delusions encounter real life. She also brings out how trauma can impact this healing and how some things ‘forgotten’ can impact us to our very core. 
 
            If psychological thrillers are your thing, I recommend this book for you! ​

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