- THE STORY:
- Wyatt, 26 years old and living in a small town in Texas, finds a girl lying beside the road. Against his better judgement, he takes her home and calls Odette, a 26-year old police officer who was once his girlfriend before she moved away and married. She had returned to try to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Wyatt’s sister and father ten years earlier. Her father, now dead, was the police officer dealing with the case and Odette wants to complete his work. Odette knows that Wyatt is the chief suspect but nothing has ever been proven. Five years later, the girl taken in by Odette, returns to the town and discovers the truth about the disappearances.
- MY THOUGHTS:
- The beginning chapters hooked me immediately, but the atmosphere and tension didn’t build as I expected. Readers who expect an exciting, fast-paced thriller will be disappointed. It’s more of a slow, dark mystery.
- BOOK REVIEWS:
- Kirkus: “While there are nuggets of fresh ideas, the themes get a bit muddled. There are, however, interesting twists and turns in the narrative that will carry the reader along. The destination might not be wholly satisfying, but the ride is fun. An exciting though flawed thriller of lost girls and buried trauma in small-town Texas.”
- Publishers Weekly: “Heaberlin sensitively addresses issues of survival and vulnerability in this heart-wrenching gothic tale.”
- QUOTES:
- “We’re seated on a back balcony that extends ten feet over a rocky drop-off. Dizzying. I can’t fight that sense that if I set my glass down just a little too hard, the back half of the house will crack off and us with it.”
- “Johnny Walker can cut through any crap.”
- “I was seventeen when I ripped the recipes out of this book and threw them in the trash. Betty Crocker smiled the whole time with a motherly stamp of approval.”
- “We are all the same in the dark. My mother said that to me when she kissed me goodnight. She meant that in the dark, all that’s left is our souls.”
- AUTHOR: Julia Heaberlain
- OTHER EDITION:
BOOK SNAPS - for readers 