The Lemon Drop Kid

By: Josh Lanyon

Narrated by: Andrew Gibson

How The Cookie Crumbled

As sole heir to the Bredahl Cookies and Cakes fortune, Casper led a comfortable, happy-go-lucky life. Some would say, a charmed life.

Sure, there were challenges: relentless pressure to join the family business, and his unrequited feelings for former high school crush Raleigh Jackson. But yeah, a charmed existence, compared to life after being arrested for murder and spending nearly a year in Chippewa Falls County Jail, awaiting trial.

Exoneration, freedom, came at too steep a price. To say Casper isn’t in the mood for the holidays, is putting it mildly. In fact, the only thing he wants for Christmas is to see Detective Raleigh Jackson, the man responsible for wrongly putting him behind bars, get his just desserts.

©2024 Josh Lanyon (P)2024 Josh Lanyon

Josh Lanyon never disappoint!

What a fantastic listen. Kept me engaged from beginning to end! Really enjoy the complex hate-love dynamic. If you are a fan of Josh Lanyon's works or never read any of her book before, then this is a must.

Josh did it again!

Josh consistently writes complex and flawed characters that capture how humans are messy and imperfect creatures that are somehow deeply lovable in their earnestness. Casper in "Lemon Drop Kid" is no exception. You feel his churning emotions. Casper is struggling with loss, hate, and confusion.

Casper's partner Detective Raleigh Jackson helped put him in jail for a murder he did not commit. Once exonerated Casper is literally and metaphorically struggling with the profound silence and physical toll of truly being alone. In jail Casper because use to living in an environment constantly filled with sound. Even if you were alone, you were not alone. And while incarcerated Casper had the illusion of a support system waiting for him on the outside.

Once free from being held in jail Casper's body viscerally rejects the deafening silence of his new life. You can feel the confusion he grapples with when he sees that he both loves and hates Raleigh. You can feel the weight he carries knowing he has no more family. He has a huge estate but no one to fill it. This hate and loneliness become a new prison for Casper.

In "Lemon Drop Kid" Josh explores how two things can be true at once, and sometimes you have to decide to be happy over being "right" because what hurts less? Forgiveness or holding onto fractures? And that's not perfect or ideal but it is what it is. And Casper doesn't paint everything over with a brush to smooth out the edges. It's not perfect and that's okay.

It's from wading through the sludge and darkness that the characters learn to appreciate the glimmering moments of "stillness." It's perfect in it's imperfection. Casper and Raleigh learn to love people based on their entirety.

More Murder/Love Than Mystery/Romance

Another well-written, engaging story from JL. I appreciate pivoting from the well-worn falsely accused trope and into recovering from 11 months in county jail and mad as hell. With cheery cloying Christmas music in the background.

Good story. Good narration.

Josh Lanyon's standalone stories are things to be hoarded for rainy days. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, I am buying all of them. This one is just as entertaining as all the rest. I feel like I was dropped in the middle of a true crime drama with a gay romance and good writing for an added bonus.

The narrator, Andrew Gibson, did a great job of giving life to the characters. I think his voice was particularly well suited to this story. I am looking forward to the possibility of more stories with this author and narrator combo.

Storm and drang

Obvious bad guy from the first page. Not the best by this author. It should’ve been a short story. Plot was simple.

Delivers like a favorite cocktail.

Here's hoping there's more to come. I'm inspired to hear more of this story. Another interesting place and charactures made by this author.

This was to short.

The books story was so intriguing that I found myself not wanting it to end. the only issue I found in the story was the final conflict between the couple that lasted until the epilogue. Why would you wait until the last chapter to finish the conflict between the couple, the epilogue no less. I found myself interested in the layers of grief that this book portrayed. The narrator did good with this book. I however won't lisson to this again, I hate that the conflict between lasted so long. The fact that the epilogue was used for fixing the couples issues instead of showing character growth upset me. This book would of been amazing if it was give more chapters and gotten rid of that last conflict. The last conflict felt unnecessary and could have been taken out to focus more on the couples relationship growth.