Boy On Hold

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In Boy On Hold, Author JD Spero weaves a multi-POV story around Marcella Trout, a single mom and waitress, and her boys, Henry "Hen," a sweet child, and Tyler, a troubled, mentally ill teenage son. Struggling to make ends meet, she relies on a kind-hearted neighbor Sally Hubbard and her adult son, Bernie, to help care for her kids. One night, Hen sneaks out of the house to play in his pup tent when 'monsters' arise in his neighbor's window, scaring him to bed. But the next day, to their horror, Bernie discovers his mother fatally injured. To make matters worse, Marcella's ex-husband, Tripp, and sexist former boss, Leon, come back into her life at the worst time, but she must then seek out their help when her eldest son gets implicated in Sally's murder. With the youngest boy knowing more than he realizes and the eldest boy's mental state fracturing in jail, it becomes a race to discover the truth, leading to an explosive, game-changing trial.

As a fellow mystery writer partial to writing about a single mom and waitress, I cannot help but like JD Spero's heroine. The author also writes in a straightforward multi-POV style, making it easy to navigate between the different characters' viewpoints. The Immortal Works publisher markets it for teens and adults alike, and it hits the mark.