A suspenseful tale of resilience that will resonate with anyone who has ever yearned for a fresh start.
Six years after a violent home invasion and the mysterious disappearance of their older cousin, two sisters begin to put together the pieces of what actually happened.
No one ever leaves the backwater town of Beaumont, Missouri. Amelia and Kylee Crow’s older cousin, Grace, comes closest to getting out—she was both at the top of her class and the first in their family to get into college—but all that changed the night she vanished while babysitting them. Years have passed since that fateful, bloody evening, and while most of Beaumont’s residents have moved on with their lives, Amelia can’t shake the feeling that the truth of what happened is still out there waiting to be found—and so is Grace, dead or alive. When the body of a young woman is discovered on a piece of property in town, old questions are dredged up, fingers are pointed, and Amelia and Kylee soon learn that their family might not be the only one with skeletons in the closet. The story is told in alternating sections, starting with chapters narrated by Amelia as she and Kylee search for answers, and then switching to chapters written from Grace’s point of view leading up to the night of her disappearance. Grace’s chapters help readers fill in the pieces that Amelia and Kylee struggle to put together, as well as emphasize the love that exists among all three girls in a world that is extremely unkind and violent toward young women. Where McHugh’s writing truly shines, however, is in her descriptions of the town of Beaumont and its residents. From Amelia and Kylee’s pole-dancer mother—who loves and deeply resents her daughters in equal measure—to the meatpacking plant where everyone works after high school, she deftly captures the hardships of a small and insular community with vivid detail.
A suspenseful tale of resilience that will resonate with anyone who has ever yearned for a fresh start.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593448854
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.
More than a decade after a Georgia man is convicted of a monstrous double murder, an uncomfortably similar crime frees him and resets the search for the guilty party.
In Clifton County, home to the Rich Cliftons and the other Cliftons, the disappearance of teens Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker during the Halloween festivities hits everyone in North Falls hard. Working with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton hears the clock ticking down as she races frantically to get leads on the two friends, who’d been secretly plotting to take off for Atlanta after some undisclosed big score. As a longtime friend of Madison’s mother, Hannah, Emmy hopes against hope to find the missing teens before they’re both dead. By the time Emmy’s hopes are dashed, two unpleasantly likely suspects with strong attachments to underage sex partners have emerged, and one of them ends up in prison. In a bold move, Slaughter jumps over the next 12 years to the case of Paisley Walker, a 14-year-old whose disappearance catches the eye of retiring FBI criminal psychologist Jude Archer, who promptly crosses the country to come to Clifton County and take charge—um, that is, consult—on this heartrending new investigation. Emmy, suddenly and shockingly deprived of counsel from the parents who’ve supported her all her life, doesn’t get along any better with Jude than with the larger circle of Cliftons and the Clifton-Cliftons. But together they identify one new suspect, then another, before a shootout that arrives so early you just know there are still more surprises to come.
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063336773
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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