“After something tragic overwhelms your life, it takes a while to determine your guilt.”

At Close Range by Leesa Ross is an absolutely heartbreaking account of one mother’s struggle to navigate the unspeakable grief of losing a child and to break down the brick walls of investigative feedback and a coroner’s report that her son died of suicide from a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to the head. Putting things into perspective can be difficult when faced with the fresh wounds of loss, but Leesa refuses to believe her son Jon took his own life. For her, all the evidence pointed to an accidental shooting based on negligence at a friend’s house, but getting the coroner to change his report proves to be a daunting and a virtually impossible task.

At Close Range is a grieving mother’s transition through the natural stages following her son’s death, from shock and despair to advocating gun safety. The transition has been long and arduous for Leesa and her family, but it has brought with it a fair amount of healing and the need to share this painful story. Nothing in this book is easy to read because it is both sad, in terms of tragic loss, and controversial, in terms of saying anything about guns. In the current political and social climate, gun control, safety, and advocacy are hot-button topics. If you kick that gun control hornets’ nest,  be prepared to get stung over and over again. Leesa’s story, however, is not solely about gun control and safety, although her journey has definitely taken her in that direction. At Close Range is also about internalizing the blame and shame that comes from losing a child due to the lack of gun safety and having it labeled as a suicide. Sorting through the avalanche of emotions is Leesa’s burden as she mourns her son and as she dons the investigator hat in her son’s death and seeks the ultimate answer that continues to elude her grasp in the legal quagmire. Leesa firmly believes Jon did not commit suicide, but how do you convince everyone else?

As difficult as this story is to read, it necessarily opens the door for the much-needed questions and conversation about gun control and safety. Leesa Ross and her family are not anti-gun in general, and this story is not about banning or taking away guns but about respecting them, understanding their role in society, and advocating for more awareness and education regarding proper use, storage, and safety. The writing is quite beautiful and honest, filled with raw emotion, anger, love, and hope. Through Leesa’s courageous push for enlightenment and her ultimate involvement in gun awareness, this controversial topic is brought to the forefront through a mother’s lens. Adults need to talk about guns because the children in their lives will likely find themselves around them at some point, whether at a party, at a friend’s house, or in their own home. Leesa needed to tell Jon’s story for her own healing but also to give her son’s life and death meaning and purpose – a legacy for others to learn from and maybe start that conversation with loved ones before another trigger is accidentally pulled.

Enter the giveaway below on or before February 26, 2021, for a chance to win a hardcover copy of At Close Range by Leesa Ross.

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.