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Eliza Maxwell

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The Grave Tender Kindle Edition

by Eliza Maxwell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 6,169 ratings

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A chilling psychological suspense novel, The Grave Tender explores the dark boundaries people cross to save loved ones, and the limits of family bonds tested by the deepest of betrayals.

Endless questions from a shadow-filled East Texas childhood haunt Hadley Dixon. People said her mother, Winnie, was never quite right, but with one single, irreparable act, life as Hadley knew it was shattered. The aftershocks of that moonlit night left her reeling, but the secrets and lies had started long before.

When a widowed and pregnant Hadley returns years later, it’s not the safe harbor she expects. The mysteries surrounding a local boy’s disappearance remain, and the townspeople still whisper about Hadley’s strange and reclusive Uncle Eli—whispers about a monster in their midst.

But Hadley’s father and grandmother, the cornerstones of everything safe in her world, avoid her questions. If Hadley stays here, will she be giving her children the family they need, or putting their lives in danger?

The hunt for answers takes a determined Hadley deep into the pine forests, in search of sunlight that will break through the canopy of lies long enough to reveal the truth.

Revised edition: This edition of The Grave Tender includes editorial revisions.

Print length

263 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Lake Union Publishing
Publication date

April 11, 2017
File size

4067 KB
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Enabled
Word Wise

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Enhanced typesetting

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Popular Highlights in this book

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“I believe that life is full of tragedy. Some lives more than others. But I also believe that comfort can be found with the people who love you . . . if you’re willing to let them give it.”
Highlighted by 144 Kindle readers
“It’s like a splinter in your foot. It’s there even when you’re not thinking about it. I’ve been trying real hard to pull it out, so it won’t hurt anymore, but that’s not working so well. So I think I’m just gonna have to learn to walk on it, even though it hurts.”
Highlighted by 138 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Grave Tender will grasp you in its hooks from the beginning as you try to figure out the truth behind each character, because no one is truly what they seem... Addicting, easy to read, and hard to put down." - Shelbi LeMeilleur, Insite Magazine

About the Author

Eliza Maxwell writes fiction from her home in Texas, which she shares with her ever-patient husband, two impatient kids, a ridiculous English setter, and a bird named Sarah. Her second novel was The Kinfolk. An artist and writer, a dedicated introvert, and a British cop drama addict, she enjoys nothing more than sitting on the front porch with a good cup of coffee.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01M07KRJ8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lake Union Publishing (April 11, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 11, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4067 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 263 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #120,695 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #374 in Women's Psychological Fiction
- #1,171 in Psychological Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #1,552 in Psychological Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 6,169 ratings

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Eliza Maxwell lives in Texas with her ever patient husband and two kids. She's an artist and writer, an introvert and a British cop drama addict. She loves nothing more than to hear from readers. You can find her at theelizamaxwell@gmail.com.

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Tony Parsons

Hadley was delighted to be part of the festive

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2017

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1989, Whitewood, TX. Hadley Dixon & many others watched Walker Dixon (dad, general contractor).
He had found Teddy Benoit (boy) beneath the water.
Upon bringing him up to the surface Teddy was not breathing.
Mouth/mouth & he spit up. He managed to survive the ordeal.
Out on the playground Sam Brooks (big kid), & Cooper Abbott (big kid) got into a tussle.
Hadley stepped & & gave Sam quite a punch.

Mrs. Huffman (4th.-grade teacher) was taking her to the Principal’s office.
Sam went to the nurse’s office then to the Principal’s office.
Walker had arrived at Mr. Gilmore’s office.
Sam apologized to Hadley.
News flash. mayor Clemont Desmond said take cover hurricane Jolene was headed toward Cordelia.
The Cordelia Convention Center & the HS gym are prepared to take on displaced residents.
Fast forward: 2012, Hadley’s daughter Kate (11) would be going to Whitewood Elementary.
Jude owned The Voodoo Queen & a catering service.

Hadley went there & there was Sam.
The 3 of them were reminiscing about old times.
Jude offered Hadley a PT job with the catering business.
Mr. Kenneth & Mrs. Kenneth Hart were celebrating their 50th. wedding anniversary.
Jude Monroe Castillo was catering the grand event.
Hadley was delighted to be part of the festive.
Flashback: what did Eli Dixon (11, oldest son), & Walker Dixon (4, youngest son), witness their dad Silas Dixon (husband, Korean War disabled vet, alcoholic) doing to their mother Alva Dixon (36, wife)?
1 day Deputy Willis (Caddo County Sheriff’s Dept.) came to see Alva about Silas abandoned car in a parking lot.
Deputy Willis never came back.
Some family members would move on some would not.

How will their lives turn out?

Warning: This book is for adults only & contains extreme violent or graphic adult content or profanity &/or sexually explicit scenarios. It may be offensive to some readers.

I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. Only an honest one.

A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. Wow, a very well written psychological thriller book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great psychological thriller movie, or better yet a mini TV series. A very easy rating of 5 stars.

Thank you for the free Goodreads; MakingConnections; Lake Union Publishing; Amazon Digital Services LLC; book
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)

6 people found this helpful

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Oleander Whisper

“Where your ear goes, so goes the rest of you…”

Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2023

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This author employs a unique and very deliberate writing style that dishes out dialogue, scenes, and character descriptions like individual food servings placed succinctly on a cafeteria tray. Even with the staccato delivery of information, the transitions made back and forth between different time periods are smooth and engaging.

This story touches on many mature themes, and a lot of the scenes are only appropriate for advanced audiences, but the harsh realities of life exist whether we shine a light on them or not. Readers should be prepared for mentions of rape, murder, suicide, abuse, self-harm, molestation, and repeated acts of cruelty. This author explores the dangerous volatility of undiagnosed mental illnesses that leads to the necessary intervention of multigenerational child rearing, as rescued carousel horses, school playgrounds, wild berry bushes, art therapy sessions, and crackling campfires simmer together in the East Texas heat.

There is the precociousness of a child simultaneously aching for a mother’s love and a father’s attention, and there seems to be an ever-changing cast of villains and protectors at every turn. Prospective readers should tread gently but consistently through this multifaceted novel, “always avoiding that creaky third step.”

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Trescinda

amazing depth, couldn’t put it down

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2023

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I highly recommend The Grave Tender. Lives torn apart by secrets, the overwhelming pain as each secret comes to light. I didn’t see the ending until the very end.

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Kristen Riley-McFarland

Wow.

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2023

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Hadley had demons to wrestle, most weren't her own. I enjoyed her story, watching her grow as a woman, connect and reconnect with old friends and family, and battling her family's demons. There were so many twists and turns in this book, it kept my attention from start to finish.

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Texasbooklover

dark psychological suspense that skillfully inspires a slow-dawning dread

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2017

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MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
Eliza Maxwell
The Grave Tender
Lake Union Publishing
E-book, 978-1-5053-5334-3, (also available in paperback, and on Audible), 248 pgs., $14.95
April 11, 2017

Young widow and mother Hadley Dixon discovers her three-year-old son, Charlie, missing from their farmhouse next to the Neches River in East Texas. Though Charlie is found safe and sound in short order, the traumatic incident serves as a catalyst for Hadley’s deep dive into family secrets. “It was the sins of her family, and her own, that had come home to roost,” Hadley thinks. “Huge hook-beaked birds that fed on carrion. They’d taken her son, then brought him back. To show they could.”

I would add The Grave Tender by Eliza Maxwell to the growing subgenre I call East Texas Gothic, but I think you need a supernatural element for true East Texas Gothic—preferably a witch. But Maxwell hits the other requirements, especially the primordial, haunted landscape that bears witness. “When Jude spoke, her words circled around them in their wooded cocoon,” Maxwell writes, “and Hadley tried to shake off the sensation that the living things around them were all pieces of a whole. That the woods were listening, judging their worthiness to continue on this path.”

The Grave Tender intrigues with its cover—an image of a young woman seen from behind, the picture of innocence in a light pink cardigan as she faces a forbidding wood. The novel delivers on the cover’s insinuations. The Grave Tender is atmospheric and fast-paced, packing plenty of twists, and is unrelentingly dark. Even so, there’s not a lot of foreshadowing; Maxwell will sneak up on you with a matter-of-fact delivery as she manages to stay just this side of melodrama.

Maxwell’s characters are well developed, especially Hadley’s best friend Jude, who possesses a unique voice; as soon as Jude’s dialogue begins we know who’s talking. She provides the only comic relief. Here the child Jude is attempting to name a dog she and Hadley have found injured in the road: “I think we should call her Lucky, but Hadley says she wasn’t very lucky when that car hit her, unless bad luck counts,” Jude breathlessly recounts. “But Bad Lucky isn’t a very good name for a dog.”

Another standout character is Uncle Eli, a Boo Radley sort, who lives in the woods hiding his scarred face from the world in a shack which “could have sprouted out of the east Texas riverbank soil, fertilized by pine needles and motor oil,” Maxwell writes, “raised with loving, calloused hands by trailer park mothers who smelled like cinnamon and menthol cigarettes.”

Precise word choices are evident as Maxwell turns a phrase, as in this description of the child Hadley: “Next to Jude, with her gold-dust skin, Hadley looked like a coloring page that someone had forgotten to color in.” When the young artist Hadley is introduced to painting, she marvels at the names of the paint colors: “Vermilion, burnt umber, ultramarine. Even the words felt exotic. Elegant, like red, orange, and blue, but all grown up and dressed for the opera.”

The Grave Tender is about the the ways we fail each other as parents, siblings, and friends, the choices we make when we think we are doing the best we can, and the power and necessity of female friendship. Told in a series of flashbacks by multiple generations of women, The Grave Tender is dark psychological suspense that skillfully inspires a slow-dawning dread. It will shred you.

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.

5 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

exceptional writing & story

Reviewed in Canada on October 9, 2021

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Complex story with unexpected turns, revealing simple and beautiful lessons….even if they come from ugly or painful things. Such is real life, so much of the lessons and beauty comes from the hard struggles!
Very talented author with easily flowing stories that grab the reader! Huge fan!!!

One person found this helpful

Kindle Customer

A story of life

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2021

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Excellent story read it in one sitting. About bravery love courage and strength when hope is gone yet it is hope that pulls the characters through. Families have secrets some get buried but always rise to the surface this book deals with the pain and the love that gets them through and family is not always blood xx

Mishka George

Totally Submerged

Reviewed in Australia on May 25, 2019

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Few novels make me want to hurry home so I can make my favourite cup of tea and lose myself in the world this story creates. The writing is picturesque. I could envisage each character in their setting. In spite of the violent subject matter the story still shines on the grace and strength of those irreparably affected by evil. I just loved it.

Stephen Clynes

Yes, it was slow but the suspense was intense.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2022

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The Grave Tender is a slow burn psychological thriller that is full of suspense about family secrets through the generations in Texas. The story floats back and forwards in time and generations with great sadness and many deaths. The central character is Hadley Dixon but her whole family have vital roles to play in this novel.

You need to have patience as this story is a slow burn which slowly nags at the reader as the generations tell their stories. Hadley Dixon and her school friends, her grandmother Alva, her mother Winnie, her daughter Kate, her father Walker and his brother Eli, every one of them has a secret. The floating around with the timeline is done to increase the suspense as the nagging doubts grow. Then suddenly you have that WTF? moment. From then onwards I was gripped with this story that was very dark in places. Although shifting time frames is one of my pet hates, with The Grave Tender this format works very well as you begin to understand the dynamics within this family.

I found the writing to be of high quality and the scenes very emotional. It feels as though the reader is the fly on the wall taking everything in. I also liked the local banter, for example…

“What I think is that if he wanted to go alone, he would have left, instead of making a point of telling me his plans just as I was heading up the stairs, then fiddle-farting around in the kitchen over another cup of coffee he doesn’t need.”

…that fiddle-farting around made me chuckle!

I enjoyed reading The Grave Tender and consider it to be a GOOD 4 star read. Yes, it was slow but the suspense was intense. However, at the end there were two unanswered questions about her Uncle Eli - the reader can guess but sadly the author did not confirm in writing, leaving me in unresolved suspense.

Amazon Customer

Must read!

Reviewed in Canada on October 23, 2020

Verified Purchase

Loved it! All her books are great. Terrific character development, unexpected plot twists. Can't put them down.

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