WHAT LIES BENEATH THE FLOWERS

San Francisco teens are drawn into a missing person investigation involving a famous young influencer.

Best friends Philippa “Pippa” Santos and Elizabeth “Bidi” Jones are in some ways an unlikely pair: Dreamy, impulsive Pippa is preoccupied with flowers, while Bidi’s self-possessed surety drives her plan to run for city council as soon as she’s 18. When Pippa witnesses the abduction of Estella Aubergine, a wealthy Black girl with a strange, reclusive white mother, she and Bidi, tempted by the life-changing $250,00 reward, decide to find her. They rope in Bidi’s cousin Maurice “Mo” Walker, a tech-savvy scholarship student at Beaumont Academy, where Estella is a rising senior. The narrative moves backward and forward in time, primarily alternating between the two friends’ first-person perspectives. Each voice is distinct, allowing readers to understand more about the teens’ lives and how their experiences have shaped them. Brazilian American Pippa doesn’t have her “Mamãe’s melanin, but [she] did get her hair,” which is thick and curly. She was raised by her Tia Jo, and they struggle to keep their neighborhood shop going amid the pressures of gentrification. Bidi, who’s Black, is passionate about social issues, including “the imbalance in resources offered when lower-income Black and Brown girls go missing.” The story contains shocking twists, an intricate backstory, and an almost gothic atmosphere that mystery fans will appreciate.

Engrossing, dramatic, and character-driven.