Steve Soderquist ‘Farm House’ Review

Written by: David Blackthorn

The book Farm House follows a woman known as Mama K, her daughter and various individuals living with them in a farm house.  Soon, a new arrival joins them and brings suspense and murder to the story along with her.  The young woman they take in has lived a life that’s taken her to Hell and back, her goal being to bring vengeance against those she feels to be responsible for this.

There is a scene in chapter two that may make some readers uncomfortable containing a pedophile and the eight year old girl.  While I would say it is not overly descriptive and does end badly for the pedophile, there is still a moment that makes you wonder where the scene is going (and doesn’t seem necessary to the storyline).  If you’re a reader who is bothered by this, you can always skip that part of chapter two and move on.

There were a couple of discrepancies in the book that really should have been caught by the editor.  For instance:  an eight year old girl has a two year old sister named Jules when the girl apparently “goes missing”, yet ten years later, Jules is seventeen years old instead of twelve.

So, does this mean it’s a bad story?  No, the story itself is enjoyable.  There are some bloody moments, some heartfelt moments and a bit of action.  Soderquist does have a gift for character development, which seems to be his strength.  We are given each individual’s background and each has their own set of issues.  This all makes it easy to connect and relate to them.

Some of the death scenes are pleasantly brutal and the character named Crystal is very calculated and disturbed.  There are certainly moments that grip you and keep you adhered to the pages waiting to see what happens next.  The depth of his character added greatly to this need to keep reading, causing the reader to almost feel what they are feeling.

Along with the brutal scenes, there are also some heartfelt scenes, as I mentioned before.  We see how the various situations impact the characters in a deep way.  I enjoyed these moments, bringing the reader close to the characters’ emotions.

Overall it was a good read and does manage to hold the reader’s attention.  I’ll be curious to see some of Soderquist’s future stories and how he developed as a writer.  I hope he continues to exercise this depth of character development, which is something most readers grasp onto.  He would have benefitted frim a better editor, as well.  I did take off points for some of the pieces that just didn’t add up but still see promise in this author.

Order it here.

Rating: 3.5/5