The Returned (The Returned #1) by Jason Mott

All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.

An absolutely fascinating premise. I wish I'd thought of it myself. What if the dead come back to life? The possibilities are endless...I immediately think of widowed people who have remarried...suddenly they have two wives or two husbands. What do they do?

The story is well written. It's different from average literature...more literary in style. The man knows how to write and switch POV smoothly. I felt like I was reading a book along the lines of M. Night Shyamalan. Like..when I watched the movie Signs years ago, I saw the main family on the screen most of the time, but then they'd watch CNN and we'd see what was going on in the rest of the world. This was like that...with the gist of the story on Harold, Lucille, their Returned son, and the town of Arcadia, now like a POW camp for the walking dead. We get these fascinating glimpses at what's going on in the rest of the world here and there...and here is where I have a complaint.

Halfway through the book, I got bored with Harold and Lucille and the small-town life. I was actually more interested in the Nazis hiding in a house. I mean, they'd come back from the dead to discover they were the most hated army in the world...and they're hiding in a Jew's house and he's talking about forgiveness...this was cool and oh, so brief. The artist who came back and married a woman, a former art student who had kept his memory alive when nobody else wished to honor it--fabulous stuff. And so little of it.

The story was too confined, IMO, to Arcadia, to Harold, a grumpy old man (not as interesting as a Nazi or a painter), to Lucille and her cooking obsession, to their son who doesn't know anything...

And above all, I was terribly bothered by a few things...people are coming back from the dead--including a family who was murdered. Why does nobody ever ask them, "Who killed you?" Does nobody think their murderers should be held accountable? That alone would have made a fascinating sub plot. Family announces who murdered them. Murderer's lawyer says there is no case as the family isn't dead after all...

And as I said in the beginning...you'd think at least one person out of these thousands of Returned, would come back to find their spouse remarried. Also, I was confused.

I saw so much more potential for drama and action than we were given.

But I will say it's fascinating to think about. It's realistic--yes, people are coming back from the dead, but what makes it realistic is how people act. I can see this happening. Half have faith. Half do not. Some may be afraid and fear leads to stupid action like riots... The gov't trying to control the situation and being rather callous about it...I can see it all happening. Very easily.

It's suspenseful, if a bit slow due to the confined town. And above all, it's a brilliant premise. I received this from netgalley.

The Returned .5, .6. and .7 by Jason Mott

I began reading The Returned and I was immediately intrigued. 10% into the story, I logged online to see what else this guy had penned. I found these--all free, all prequels promoting the big book. 


Imagine...the dead come back. They look the same as they did before they died. They haven't aged, time hasn't passed for them as it has for the living...they are just suddenly there again, years later. They show up at work and give people hear attacks...like Edmund Blithe in The First.

This story was just...a basic setting up of what's to come. We see how the Returned are misunderstood, interrogated, treated, labeled. A special bureau is created to deal with the returning dead. People are shocked. Answers cannot be found. This short story is just what the blurb promises: a man dead a year reunited with his grieving fiancee one year later. It's very simple, not much to it, but as I said, does what it should and that is lays the groundwork.

In The Sparrow, book 0.6, there's a lot more going on. I liked this one very much. A girl returns from the dead and a couple finds her. What do they do? What do they believe? This story was about how faith or lack of it can cause a rift between people, how if you have never experienced loss, you may not understand what you've gained. Even the stories the little returned girl tells made me stop and nod my head thoughtfully. "If we have not been sad, then we cannot be happy."


This short had deep meanings within its sentences and I was all set to give it a five but the way it ended was odd. Heather had a question, but never asked it. I feel like I missed something, but maybe I was supposed to feel that way...

In The Choice, an issue that came to the forefront of my mind as soon as I read the premise of these tales finally comes up. The first thing I wondered when I learned of this dead returning thing was "Well, hell, this will make a problem for anyone who's been widowed and remarried..." What are you going to do when a former loved one comes back and you're married to someone else? Be a polygamist? 

 Though this man wasn't married to the returned woman, he did love her... I liked the premise and I like how it ended. A father's love for his daughter is strong. I thought this was a sweet one and it made it clear that the dead need to stay...well, dead. But I didn't find it too suspenseful as the Returned is 17 years old and the married, living man is like, 35. No big suspense there. You know that's not going to work out. And just like with the novel...why the heck doesn't anyone ask the girl what the heck happened to her? I mean, she disappeared. Also a tad befuddled that she just jumps in his arms after almost twenty years. He's aged. You'd think she'd notice that. Hum.