Until a tragedy occurs, you never know how you will react, or who will take which side, or how rumors and facts will drive opinions.

There was something about Did You Ever Have a Family (Scout Press, 2015) by Bill Clegg that had me keep hitting the play button. His writing is captivating, the story line intriguing, and the characters interesting. (He reads the audio book.)

However, I was lost at times. There are just so many people to keep track of, and  then to remember who is connected to whom, well I was annoyed on occasion because I wasn’t always sure what was going on. I didn’t want to hit the rewind button to figure it out.

This is one instance where having the actual book in hand might have made it easier to follow along because going back a few pages would not have been as burdensome.

I suppose what I liked about the story is the characters are believable—the main ones as well as those on the periphery. The premise is plausible as well—a deadly house fire the night before a wedding ruins so many lives and touches the whole town, and people living afar.

That’s the thing about tragedies, they are never self-contained, so to speak. The ripple effect is felt far and wide.

I didn’t know how the book would end or how people would be tied together, so that bit of suspense made me want to know more.

Ultimately, it’s a book about relationships, about human nature, and in many ways how we are tied together in ways we don’t know—which is so true outside of a novel.