readingforsanity

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The Missing Half | Ashley Flowers | Published 2025

Nicole "Nic" Monroe is in a rut. At 24, she lives alone in a dinky apartment in her hometown of Mishawaka, Indiana, she's just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she's been working since high school, a job she only has becxause her boss is a family friend and feels sorry for her. Everyone has felt sorry for her for the last seven years - since the day her old sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace.

On the night Kasey went missing, her car was found over a hundred miles from home. The driver's door was open and her purse was untouched in the seat next to it. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, another young woman from the same area who disappeared in the same way, two weeks earlier. But with so little for the police to go on, both their cases eventually went cold.

Nic wants nothing more than to move on - from her sister's disappearance and the state it's left her in. But then one day, Jules's sister, Jenna Connor, walks into her life and offers Nic something she hasn't felt in a long time: hope. What follows is a gripping tale of two sisters who will do anything to find their missing halves, even if it means destroying everything they've ever known.

Years after the disappearance of her older sister, Kasey, Nic finds herself still living in their hometown of Mishawka, Indiana, working the same deadend job at Funland that she worked throughout high school. Kasey disappeared in 2012, never to be seen again, the only thing leftover was their shared vehicle, found on the side of the road hundreds of miles away in Michigan, the door left wide open and no trace of Kasey.

In the present-day, Nic is confronted by a woman named Jenna, the older sister of the other missing girl Jules Connor. Jules went missing around the same time as Kasey, under the same strange circumstances. Jenna is intent on finding out information on her sisters case, deciding to reach out to Nic in hopes that the two of them can come together to find common ground.

Nic is hesitant to rehash the past that she's tried desperately to get away from. Dealing with her own legal issues after getting a DUI recently, the presence of Jenna sends her full tilt to wanting to drink heavily again. When Jenna claims to have found some new evidence in Jules' diary, Nic reluctantly agrees to open up. But, they are unable to find anything common between the two girls: Jules was a bartender working in Osceola; Kasey was a college Freshman, home for the summer before returning for her second year of college. No friends in common, nothing in common it would appear.

When Jenna tells Nic that she lied to get her to open up, Nic is upset and rightfully so. But Jenna won't stop. Thinking back on that time, Nic remembers that Kasey had begun to withdraw into herself, isolating herself from her friends and family, claiming that she was stressed with the summer college course. At the time, Nic took her for her word but now, she can sense that Kasey was scared but they aren't sure of what.

Googling the former barbecue restaurant that Jules worked a few years before her disappearance, Nic thinks she might have found the common ground: the restaurant Jules worked for closed, and then reopened under a new name...and it is directly next door to Kasey's former job at Rosie's Records. Telling this information to Jenna, the two of them now have something that their respective sisters had in common.

Nic gets the idea to reach out to Kasey's best friend at the time, Lauren. The two of them had worked together at the record store prior to hear disappearance, and had even given Nic a ride home from her job at Funland that very night after Kasey hadn't been heard from all day. Lauren, now married with two children of her own, doesn't reach out via Facebook when Nic attempts to message her, though she does see the messages. Instead, Jenna and Nic decide it's time to find her at the church she attends, meeting up later in the week in order to do just that.

Despite Lauren's initial hesitancy, Lauren opens up to them outside of the church. She explains that though Nic remembers meeting her at the record shop that evening, she had actually already been working for the restaurant next door waitressing at the time. She also divulges a name for the two of them to look into: Steve McClean. He worked as the managers for the restaurant and was a known sleeze-ball to females in general.

When searching for him online, Jenna discovers that he has a rap sheet a mile long with instances of violence against woman, one of which included rape. The two of them are certain that Steve could be involved in their sister's disappearances, and they tell this to the former lead on the case, Detective Wyler, when they meet with him. Wyler, no longer the lead on that case after accepting a promotion with the Grand Rapids PD, explains that they looked into McClean at the time of the disappearances, but he had an alibi that checked out and there was nothing further they could get him on.

Disappointed that this lead led nowhere, the two girls decide to confront the problem head on: they would go to Mesquite and figure out who may have worked there during this particular time that would remember the sleezy manager. But when they sit down, their waiter explains that Steve is behind the bar. Jenna and Nic are terrified to learn this, and quickly leave, but deciding to follow him to a bar nearby where they confront him inside.

He remembers the girls, though remembers Kasey more since they had worked right next to each other. He complimented her looks, but made a comment that Nic begins to question immediately: that an employee of his at the time had been frenemies with Kasey, oftentimes speaking negatively to her and he thinks he even caught them arguing in the parking lot of the shopping center where their respective workplaces was. Nic doesn't believe him, ultimately allowing her anger to get the best of her and she confronts him.

Jenna is angered that Nic caused a scene in the bar, because now they have antagonized a potentially dangerous man. But with the information he had provided to them about Lauren and Kasey, they decide to return to Lauren and figure out what was going on. When they arrive at her home, Lauren tells them to leave, that she no longer wishes to participate in whatever the two of them are doing.

Jenna and Nic realize that someone has told Lauren to refrain from speaking with them. Using the knowledge that Brad, Nic's boss and a family friend of hers, is aware of what the two of them are doing, decide to see if this is the person who scared Lauren so much that she doesn't want to speak to them any longer. But, when Jenna claims that she knows about Brad, Lauren opens the door with a statement that chills Nic to the bone: "You know about Kasey and Brad?"

Despite opening this can of worms themselves, this statement still baffles Nic. Though hesitant, Lauren does invite the two of them and explains: during the summer Kasey disappeared, she and Brad had been involved with each other sexually. Lauren caught them herself outside of their work, and told Kasey her thoughts on the matter. Nic always thought the nights that Kasey spent away from home were with Lauren, as Kasey told her and their parents, instead were spent with Brad, the man that was like a second father to the two sisters.

Lauren also divulges that someone threatened her by way of her 4-year-old daughter. Lauren and her two children had attended an event at the church, and while she stepped away to change her young son's diaper, relying on other mom's to help keep an eye on her daughter, she returns and finds out that Beth Anne has a secret, and that secret was: "Stop talking about Kasey Monroe".

When Jenna and Nic leave Lauren's home, Jenna wants to confront Brad on what he did with Kasey during that summer but Nic is hesitant. The man she knows wouldn't have an affair with his best friend's 19-year-old daughter while he, himself, has been married and has two children with his wife, Sandy. Though she knows there eventually will be no choice in the matter, Nic wants to take a few days to contemplate their options and reluctantly, Jenna agrees to Nic's plan.

Going to work with Brad is difficult for Nic to do, but she puts on the bravest face that she can. Intent on finding out whatever she can before confronting Brad, Nic decides to visit the car that Kasey had been driving the day of her disappearance, the car the two of them shared that has been sitting idle inside a storage unit since 2012. She is able to find various things, mostly nostalgic items to her and Kasey, but when she reveals these things to Jenna later, she realizes that the cars mileage doesn't come close to what their oil change ticket shows.

Ultimately, Nic decides to reach out to her dad, who is always reluctant to share anything from that time, and has become reclusive in nature. During their dinner, Nic asks about his and Brad's fishing trips and the family reunion that occurs at Brad's lakehouse every year. But her dad confirm that the year that Kasey went missing, he and Brad didn't take their annual fishing trip the first weekend of August and it was Brad that had cancelled. But a few weeks later, the reunion was still happening.

Believing now that Brad could have had something to do with Kasey's disappearance, further proven through a gas station receipt from the day she went missing at a station local to Brad's lakehouse, Nic decides to forgo everything she thought she knew about Brad, and confront him. She tries to get Jenna to come with, who was supposed to meet her at her father's house the night before but didn't show. Worried about Jenna's wellbeing, Nic showed up at her house and Jenna informs her that her mother's cancer recently took a turn, and she needs to put a stop to their investigations for the timebeing.

But Nic refuses. She gets in her car, though she is unable to drive legally due to a suspended license from her DUI, and heads to the lakehouse. When her eyes land on Brad, who appears happy-go-lucky at the grill for the reunion, she goes crazy. Brad takes her inside, and Sandy joins them, determined to get to the bottom of things: Sandy informs Nic that Kasey hadn't gone to see Brad that night, but instead had come to see her.

It turns out Sandy had been aware of Brad's affair with Kasey the entire time, after discovering them in her car in the alleyway behind the record store. Determined to keep it under wraps, Sandy chose not to confront them at the time, but instead spoke with Kasey privately, leading to the altercation that Steve McClean saw in front of the shopping center. Promising to do so, Sandy thought that had been the end of it. But, shortly before she disappeared, Kasey turned up on their doorstep, asking for $10,000 to keep her mouth shut.

On the day that she went missing, Kasey had shown up at their lake house during the reunion, just like Nic has done, requesting the money. Wanting nothing more than for Kasey to go away, gave her an address to a bait shop nearby, giving her all of the money that she could at the time, amounting to around $7,000. But from there, the two of them don't know anything in regards to what happened to Kasey, and were not involved in her disappearance. Brad does admit to speaking with Lauren's 4-year-old daughter in his attempt to keep his secret hidden, but doesn't know anything about why Jenna suddenly doesn't seem interested in their investigations anymore.

Making her way back home, Nic is pulled over and arrested for driving on a suspended license and for a warrant after she had missed a court appearance around the same time that Jenna appeared in her life, turning it upside down. With no one else to turn to, she calls Jenna from jail asking for a ride and to bail her out the following day when she would be able to be released. Reluctantly, Jenna does so. But, she reiterates the fact that she doesn't want to continue to pursue Jules' and Kasey's disappearances, instead wanting to focus on the present and her ill mother.

Unable to let anything go now, Nic believes that they are close to coming to the truth, the real truth, for the first time since August of 2012 when the two young woman went missing, stating she is going to get to the bottom of things.

Though Nic decides to go about this alone, she isn't sure how to proceed. But a phone call from the detective who took over the girls' missing persons case after Wyler's promotion gets in touch. Taking a bus from Indiana to Grand Rapid, Michigan, she meets with her. She explains that while there has been nothing new in the case since the new detective has taken over, Det. Aimes believes that Steve McLean could have had something to do with their individual disappearances.

Nic also learns that Jenna also spoke with the detective, and Nic believes this could be the reason behind why she decided to focus on her ill mother. Hoping to get more information from Jenna's mom, Nic decides to pay her a visit. With Mrs. Connor, Nic realizes just how hurtful she could be towards Jenna while being mournful of her missing daughter, stating that Jenna is a liar and always has been.

This is further confirmed when Nic explains how sorry she was to learn about the cancer diagnosis and how badly she's been doing when Mrs. Connor explains that as of three weeks ago, her cancer has been in remission. Nic isn't sure what to do or say about this, but knows something happened to Jenna that has caused her to keep Nic at arms length.

Deciding to find out exactly what, she decides to head to Jenna's, break into her home and look at the evidence board she had placed on the wall of the home she shared with her sister. She is successful, though nothing is new in the evidence that Jenna had acquired that Nic hadn't already seen. She is also successful in hacking into Jenna's computer, reading through various text message exchanges between a few different people.

In one, she finds that Jenna had reached out to one of Jules' close friends about her sister's standoffish behavior prior to her disappearance. In that message, the friends discloses that Jules informed her that she had been raped by Steve McLean, who had been her manager at the time.

In another, Jenna reminds a co-worker that she would be leaving early that day, and by the time Nic reads this, Jenna would be turning up at home any second. She is successful in hiding from her, but believes now that Jenna is going to hunt down and harm or even kill Steve.

Hiding in the bed of Jenna's truck, she rides along in secret, eventually pulling up at a remote location. When Jenna knocks on the door, a woman answers the door, and Nic is shocked and excited to learn that this person is Kasey.

Believing that her sister has been dead for the last half a decade, Nic can't contain the excitement she feels, but is confused what finding Kasey has to do with Jenna. Jenna begins explaining that she knows Kasey was the person responsible for the death of her sister, confirmed by her friendship with Nic. While the two of them had been going through the burned CDs that Nic found in their shared car, Jenna recognized a lyric written on one of them. The night that Jules disappeared, Jenna witnessed the car they shared, a black Honda Civic, driving off.

Jenna knows that Kasey had hit Jules with her car, further proven by front end damage to the car and the fact that Kasey had taken the car to a body shop to be fixed in a town outside of the one they resided in. Knowing now that Jenna has arrived to hurt or kill Kasey, and refusing to lose her sister a second time after finally knowing what happened to her, Nic comes to her rescue, waiting while Jenna is distracted with her accusations against Kasey to hit her with the hammer that she had hidden inside her backpack when she left her apartment for Jenna's house earlier that day.

Kasey confirms that Jenna is dead, and though Nic wants to call the police, Kasey talks her out of it. She has spent the last near decade protecting herself, she isn't going to stop now.

Nic wants to get the truth of what really happened those years ago, and Kasey finally does: it wasn't Kasey that killed Jules, it was Nic. On that night in August 2012, Kasey had been asleep in her bedroom when she got a call from her younger sister, calling for help. She was drunk, and had clipped a tree on the way home. When Kasey arrives on the scene, she discovered the morbid truth: Nic had hit Jules, killing her instantly, after her car had broken down on the side of the road.

Knowing what she has to do, Kasey takes Jules' body to a swamp to dispose of the body, leaving their futures free and clear. But when detectives begin sniffing around her town looking for answers, Kasey begins to come up with the plan to make her own disappearance look similar to Jules to keep the cops off her sister's trail.

With the truth out in the open, Nic can't believe that she had put that at the back of her mind and slowly, memories come back to her, meshing with her most recent accident due to drinking where she did actually hit a tree.

With Jenna's body resting in the final resting place of her sister, Kasey and Nic decide to begin their new lives together, but only after the initial investigation into Jenna's disappearance comes to an end. This will allow Kasey to live her life the way she has the last several years, and to give Nic something to look forward too.

What do you think about Kasey and Nic's relationship? If you have a sister or a close friend/relative, how do you compare that relationship with Nic and Kasey's? What feelings about sisterhood did this novel bring up? Nic and Kasey were the epitome of close sisters. They were close in age and spent a lot of time together given that their parents were pretty hands-off when it came to parenting. Nic was willing to give up and move on knowing that her sister had "died", but in the end, she prevailed to get to the bottom of the truth, which a lot of us with sisters or siblings in general would do.

Trust and betrayal are major themes in the novel. Were there any characters you initially trusted but later doubted? Or vice versa? How many chances are you willing to give someone who betrays your trust? Are some betrayals forgivable? Initially, I trusted both Jenna and Brad. We have Jenna, who's sister also disappeared and Brad, the family friend who helped initiate search parties and became like a second father to Nic when she needed parenting the most. I'm willing to work with people who have broken my trust, and I am able to forgive things, but if they don't actually make an effort, there is no point then.

What are the key differences in the way that Jenna and Nic process their grief? Jenna can't let go while Nic desperately wants too but began using alcohol as a means to an end, which ultimately led to her downfall.

Were you surprised by the way the police and media treated the investigation? Why or why not? I think it's pretty accurate, especially Jenna's description. Jules was a poor girl who came from nothing, didn't have a lot of people in her corner. Kasey wasn't rich by any means, but she had a lot more media attention garnered because of where her car was found, and the people who did what they needed to do in order to find her, so the media focused more on her disappearance versus Jules.

Nic's relationship with her family is undoubtedly strained. How do you think this impacted her investigation? In what ways did it help, and in what ways did it hinder her? I think the distance between herself and her parents allowed her to seek the answers they'd all been looking for for 7 years. But, her parents could be a little less selfish and talk to her. She was a teenage when her sister disappeared, and it seems that they never discussed anything about it during that timeframe or after. If they had just spoken about it instead of retreating into themselves, Nic may have been more successful in fending for herself.

Did your opinion of Kasey chance as we learned more about her life and the secrets she kept? If you were Nic, how would you have felt learning shocking things about your sister? My opinions about her didn't change. It doesn't matter WHAT someone does prior to a significant event in their life. She was young, fearless and wasn't afraid to go after what she wanted. But, like any other human being in this world, she made stupid mistakes and decisions that hurt a lot of people.

How are the two pairs of sisters at the center of the narrative different from each other? The same? Kasey seemed to have direction in life, even prior to her disappearance, and Nic seemed to fly by the seat of her pants. This is very similar to me and my sister, where I always need to have things planned out in advance and she can be more comfortable with just going with the flow. But, they're the same in terms of them coming together in the end to always protect the other one, regardless of the circumstances.

Do you agee with how the public perception and media were portrayed in the novel? Why or why not? Yes, I am. Because it is true. You see it today when "woman of the night" go missing; people tend to react poorly and don't think about the loved ones that they are leaving behind, or that their family members might be seeing the comments that someone makes. Those in better living/life conditions definitely get the sympathy vote. This is nothing new, and not unheard of in reality.

What were your thoughts on the book's ending? I didn't like it. We don't really gain any closure in the long run, and Nic and Kasey are making it appear as if Jenna's disappearance isn't going to garner any sort of media attention. She was the sister of one of the "missing" Misawaka girls, and she does have a family that she is leaving behind in her mother. While it is nice knowing that she ultimately learned the truth about her sister in the long run, it just left me with more questions than answers.

The title The Missing Half has multiple meanings. What do you think it represents in the story? The Missing Half is definitely the sisters, either sister, in the story. Jules and Kasey went missing, leaving behind the two people that they could count on without fail. Therefore, Nic and Jenna were searching for their missing half.

Who would you cast in a TV or film adaptation of The Missing Half? I'm not sure. Typically I do tend to think of the books I'm reading as movies in my mind and have a pretty good idea who would play each character. For some reason, I think of Jenna as Audrey Plaza. Very dry humor, older sister energy. But, I can't think of anyone else for our central characters in Kasey, Jules and Nic.

*Disclaimer: I finished this book on Wednesday, August 20th, 2025. I didn't not finish my thoughts until August 21st, 2025*

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His First Wife | Sue Watson | Published 2025

Sophie wasn't expecting to find love in Sicily. But when she sees Emilio, a professor who works at the university where she is teaching for the summer. He's kind, intelligent, funny, exciting and deliriously unpredictable...maybe perfect.

But paradise quickly turns to purgatory as she uncovers the haunting disappearance of Emilio's first wife. And when she senses a shadowy character following her, watching her every move, Sophie starts to question her grip on reality. Is she being paranoid, or is nothing about her new life really what it seems?

As further shocking revelations about Emilio's past surface, Sophie knows one thing: someone is trying to warn her away from him. But is that someone just jealous, or is Sophie caught in a lethal trap?

In Sicily for a new start, Sophie is working at a local university as an art teacher, hoping to bring her love of art to Sicilian teenagers. Instead, she is left with students of the rich Americans who vacation and summer in Sicily instead. But, after the end of her first marriage under strange circumstances, Sophie is determined to make the best of her time there.

She meets Abbi shortly after moving into her tiny apartment, a young girl who lives on the floor below her. Abbi, ever the pessimist, is intent on intruding into Sophie's life, at first inviting her over for coffee which Sophie had politely declined. But ever since a power outage hit their building, the two of them have gotten quite close.

While planning a trip to Rome for the two of them, Abbi becomes disgruntled at the idea that Sophie has found someone she is interested in. Sophie, who has divulged her past to Abbi, sees and instantly becomes attracted to Emilio Ferrante, who works at the same university as she as a professor of volocanology. Abbi tries to tell Sophie that she isn't ready for any type of relationship, and that Emilio is old, therefore she shouldn't possibly be wanting to be involved with him. But Sophie knows that the only way to begin moving on from something in her past is to get behind (or under!) someone else.

Sophie begins encountering Emilio everywhere she goes: around the university where the two of them work, while having coffee with Abbi in a coffee shop, and even when the two girls end up at a bar on a random Friday night. Abbi begins to wonder if Sophie is orchestrating these sightings intentionally, though Sophie insists that she had no idea that Emilio would be at a bar, let alone the same one that the two of them decided together to check out, having never been there before. When she attempts to keep herself engrossed in her discussions with Abbi, she can't help herself and peek over at Emilio, sitting alone nursing a drink. But Abbi continues to tell her that she doesn't think she Sophie is ready for any type of commitment with another person. Annoyed, but excited when Emilio begins to make his way over to them, she becomes discontent when he passes by without so much as a second glance in their direction, leaving Sophie to believe that she has imagined their connection during their encounters when they've made eye contact.

A few days later, they run into each other again and speak for the first time. Emilio hints that he'd like to take Sophie out and they do, attending a theater and having drinks. The night goes well, eventually leading Sophie to inviting him upstairs to her apartment. Without warning, the two of them kiss which leads to them sleeping together for the first time. But when Sophie wakes the next morning, Emilio has left without leaving a note or text, leaving her confused and angry about the events in general.

Despite the difficulty at the beginning of their relationship, they begin seeing each other regularly for a few months. But, Emilio is still standoffish with Sophie, going quiet for days on end or continuously being late to meetings or not showing up at all. When she learns from Abbi that Emilio is married to another volcanologist named Gina Caprini, she ends the relationship completely.

But, Emilio is desperate to tell her the truth: that yes, he is married, but the two of them are separated and when she returns from working in Hawaii, the two of them were going to begin divorce proceedings. Gina had been unfaithful and despite his feelings for his wife remaining, he knows that he needs to move on. But he also tells Sophie another truth: that he has been invited to work at the base of Mount Etna for a year, and that he won't be able to bring her along.

Saddened by all of these revelations, Sophie reaches out to her friend and student, Marian, for help. Though Marian is a student, and they shouldn't be speaking to each other outside of school-related issues, Marian agrees to let her stay in her extra room. But the following morning, Sophie is released from her position at the school because of it, as someone had reached out and stated that she saw Sophie assault Marian.

With nowhere to go, she checks into a hotel but Emilio shows up, letting her know that he had spoken to the directors of the work he'd be doing in Catania, and they had agreed to let her come with him. The following morning, the two of them head off to the small, remote cabin where they will live for the next year.

And for a few months, things are perfect. Gina reaches out seldomly, they don't have to deal with her younger half-sister who seemed intent on causing issues for them, and eventually, Sophie learns that she is expecting. Emilio is thrilled with this, and knows that they need to begin divorce proceedings quickly.

But shortly thereafter, Sabrina shows up at the cabin, ready to let bygones be bygones, and the three of them spend the evening together, celebrating despite Gina not having been heard from for a few weeks. Sabrina is desperate for answers, and they soon get them: Gina's body is recovered from a crater on Etna itself, and she had never made it to Hawaii after all.

On suspicion of her murder, Emilio is brought in for questioning, and Sophie quickly follows. Though they are questioned, Sophie is released but Emilio remains behind. With the press keeping tabs on her whereabouts, she turns to Sabrina for help, requesting that she be able to return to their childhood home in Taorima so she can lie low due to her pregnancy.

But when she arrives, Sabrina is nowhere to be found until she turns up claiming to have been called in for police questioning, though Sophie doesn't think this is true. She is placed in Gina and Emilio's old bedroom, and is feeling uncomfortable, but she locates a cell phone in the drawer. She learns that Sabrina is the one who had been posing as Gina on her Instagram page, allowing people to believe that everything was okay with Gina.

When confronted, Sabrina does out herself. Sophie intends to take the phone to the police to implicate Sabrina in Gina's death. But she is thwarted by Marian. The two of them had remained close after she had been fired from the university, but Sophie had been under the impression that Marian was out to sea with a man she knew.

The two of them head to Marian's to catch up, where Marian tells her the scary truth: she is a famous portrait painter, who has been living under assumed names in order to keep a focus on her art instead of herself. She, Gina and Emilio had been quite close, having painted Gina, who she claims is her muse. Though she had been told to go ahead and make a move on Emilio, Gina continuously thwarts her attempts by showing up unannounced when Marian had invited him to a party.

Marian wanted nothing but Emilio, and in doing so, decided to end Gina's life, leaving her in the crater. But Emilio met and began seeing Sophie shortly after, which further thwarted her plans. Marian joined her class, befriended her and did everything she could to get with Emilio herself. But, now Sophie is pregnant, and nothing is how Marian is intended it to be.

Drugging Sophie, making it hard for her to rescue herself, but she is able to protect herself by stabbing, and eventually killing, Marian herself.

In the end, Sophie and Emilio marry shortly after the birth of their daughter, Beatrice. But Sabrina shows up, knowing the truth that Sophie had been desperate to keep hidden: when her first husband, Simon, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he chose to kill himself instead of dying in pain, in which Sophie had helped him. Sabrina, wanting money, decides not to share this information with anyone when Sophie agrees to her demands.

But Sophie has a more sinister plan in place, going to kill anyone or anything that stands in her way of being with Emilio and their family.

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The Ghostwriter | Julie Clark | Published 2025

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of legendary author Vincent Taylor, famous not only for his novels but for being the prime suspect in the brutal slaying of his siblings. On the brink of financial ruin, Olivia reluctantly agrees to ghostwrite her father's last book, not realizing she will be forced to reckon with the ghosts that live at the center of her family.

Olivia Dumont is in a bind. After being essentially shunned by the writing community after making untoward comments regarding another writer in the industry, she finds herself hurting for money. With a lawsuit from the individual she spoken badly about forcing her to pay $500,000 in addition to $200,000 in attorney fees, she is trying to do everything she can to find work.

Olivia is a ghostwriter, where others bring her in to write their stories but paste their names on the book in order to the credit. After years of working as a journalist but finding nothing coming out of it, Olivia has found her dream job, something she is good at. When she is requested to take on a project with famed horror author Vincent Taylor, she is hesitant. Because Vincent Taylor is her father, whom she has been estranged from since she was a teenager. But with the thought of losing her house looming in the background, Olivia reluctantly accepts.

Vincent wants to keep his true intentions a secret. He has specifically requested his daughter because he trusts no one else to tell the true story. He is writing a memoir revolving around the deaths of his older brother, Danny and younger sister Poppy, the deaths of which he has long been suspected of committing. In the summer of 1975, Danny and Poppy were found dead in their home on the night of a carnival in their hometown of Ojai, California.

Olivia is unsure what her father is expecting out of this, but they agree on a week-long trial basis to ensure that she will be able to fully tell the story. He has provided her with a series of yellow legal notepads, written front and back. But his thoughts are jumbled, no set storyline coming through. And, much to her dismay, Vincent has been recently diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, causing him to be an unreliable narrator both on paper and in person.

Olivia is unable to speak to anyone regarding what happened back then, so is simply relying on her father's unreliable memory of the time and the stories he's written down on the papers. Her father is able to give her some things, includng confirming that his sister, Poppy, had been given a camera for her birthday that year that she rarely went without. She had taken home videos, but after her death, the videos could never be found. Her best friend, Margot, claims that she didn't have them and the police were never able to recover them.

But, Olivia has Poppy's diary, where it claims that it wasn't Danny, whom Vincent claims was the aggressor in all situations, but instead had been Vincent. There were claims that her mother, Lydia, who had abandoned her as a child, left to be raised by her father, had been pregnant that year and had had an abortion, leading Poppy to believe that Vincent couldn't possibly be the father. His storytellings also tell of a time when he and Lydia had begun dating, and Vincent was unable to control his jealousy surrounding Lydia's "flirtations" with Danny, in addition to working closely with a teacher of theirs who lived next door to the Taylor's, who was working with her on her track running in order to secure a scholarship to college.

But, everyone that Vincent has been telling Olivia, how Danny was angry and an aggressor in their relationship, how Danny had treated Poppy badly, and how, one time, he saw Danny burying a cat in the fields behind their house causing him to lash out at Poppy, had all been a lie.

After Olivia discovers that Vincent's childhood home was still owned by him, though kept hidden through various LLCs, she was able to gain entry and walked through the house. Unsure of what she was looking for, she felt compelled to get closer to the aunt she never knew, as she had been born 5 years after Poppy and Danny's deaths. While sitting inside of Poppy's bedroom closet, she sees the chilling words left behind written by her father, and how they relate to Poppy dying relatively soon.

Calling her childhood best friend for help, Jack and Olivia also locate the missing movie reels, hidden under a loose floorboard in her bedroom. Quickly, Olivia is able to have them digitized and sent to her email, though without sound. She begins matching up the clips with dates Poppy had left behind in her diary, and the most chilling revelation to date: it wasn't Danny who had been in the field burying a dead cat that day. It was, in fact, her father, Vincent Taylor, doing the act and it had been a cat that belonged to their neighbor and teacher, Mr. Stewart.

With this new information in hand, Olivia begins to question whether or not the stories her dad is telling are truthful. It's easy to assume that with his dementia, that his memory is skewed. Especially when she begins talking to other individuals that were involved during this time, including Poppy's best friend Margot. With the thought of going against the contract she signed in the air, she finds a loophole that will allow her to seek the answers she desperately wants for her deceased aunt and uncle by using his maiden name instead of Dumont, which is what she signed the contract with.

Margot gives her some juicy information, including how Vincent, after a fight with Danny, began sleeping in her room on the bedroom floor, going so far as to say that he wished Danny would die, or that he wanted to kill him. Olivia shows her a clip from the party Poppy had videoed, in which she felt something important was shown, but Margot cannot see anything out of the ordinary.

Olivia also speaks with a lawyer who worked on a grand jury that was called in 1993. It had been found that the coroner who performed the autopsies on her family may have been involved in drugs, and that the cases he worked on were being called into question. During their conversation, he confirms that this particular case the coroner had been found to be sober, therefore the estimated time of death was correct and that Vincent's alibi wasn't being called into question and was solid.

She's also going through a period where she and her long-term boyfriend are on the outs. Tom, who works in construction, had made it clear that he did not like liars and it was a non-negotiable for him in his relationships. When Alma, Vincent's caretaker, requests Olivia to go and speak with her father, Tom overhears and he had been told by Olivia that her father was dead. He tells her that their relationship is now over, and for a few days, Olivia is upset by this but knows that she needs to continue forward to get the answers that she is seeking for her family.

As her questioning continues with those who might have been involved during that time in 1975, she feels herself getting closer and closer to the truth. Determined to get there, Olivia decides to show her father the clip from the party that Poppy had mentioned in her diary. He becomes irrationally angry during the viewing, throwing books around his office and smashing his hand through a window.

When Alma, the caretaker, demands that Olivia leave for a few days after this event, she decides to finally go and visit her estranged mother who had left when she was a young girl. As they're talking, she learns the truth: in the video, it was Danny and Lydia getting close that set her father off. Lydia explains that while Mr. Stewart had been the one that took her to an abortion clinic to end an unwanted pregnancy that was caused by Danny, who had raped her after she resisted his advances.

When Olivia asks her about what could have possibly happened to Poppy's camera that had gone missing about a week before her death, Lydia provides her with it, stating she had intended to return it to her but then the events of the murders happened and she was unable to do so. But she believes that what is on the film could be the reasoning behind everything.

Olivia has the film digitized and watches her, returning to her father after he is released from the hospital after being left there for observation. The two of them watch the video together, where it is revealed that the events of everything started because Mr. Stewart had become involved with several students, including Danny. Poppy witnessed their confrontation between the two of them, and this set Danny off. It was difficult for her to keep the secret, and she was going to tell Vincent about what happened, but they were unable to get there.

Because when Poppy arrived home, she was confronted by Mr. Stewart, who stabbed her and left her to die. When Vincent arrived home, he believed that Danny had been the one to kill her but he had walked onto the scene of the crime himself and was saddened he was unable to save her. But, he and Vincent ultimately end up in a fight, leading him to become unconscious and when he came too, Danny's throat had been slashed and was dying.

This is the story that they write in Vincent's memoir. It became an instant bestseller in the nonfiction genre. Vincent eventually loses his battle with the dementia, passing away in April shortly before the anniversary of his siblings deaths and before the book could be released.

While there wasn't any evidence leading to Mr. Stewart's arrest for the murders of her aunt and uncle, many of his victims came forward after the books release which led him to be arrested for what he had done to them. After the two of them had watched the video together, Vincent also confessed that it had been Lydia who had killed Danny, having walked in on everything, leading her to believe that Danny had killed Poppy for knowing the truth about what happened between the two of them. Vincent, to protect her, kept this secret all this time, for the woman he had fallen in love with.

Reading Group Guide Questions

Would you ever want to be a ghostwriter - doing the work in the background but never acknowledged - or do you prefer to be the star? I've never given this much thought before. I always imagined that it was the famous individual doing the writing, but then again, having someone tell your story makes much more sense. I wouldn't be opposed to doing something like this. It honestly sounds like a dream.

Have you had experience with a family member or loved one with dementia? What was/is that experience like? In the beginning of this year, my grandmother was diagnosed with vascular dementia. The majority of her siblings also dealt with this, so knowing it is hereditary and could possibly affect my life is terrifying. But it is massively heartbreaking to know that the vibrant woman that I've known and loved my entire 35 years of life dwindle away and begin forgetting even the most basic of things. At this point, she still remembers the majority of the people in her life, though she does often forget names of people she's known for many years. When talking with her on the phone, she will often repeat the same things or questions, telling the same stories over and over again. It can be frustrating, so I'm constantly reminding myself that this is something she cannot control. It's devastating.

Olivia feels her family's past and secrets are so harmful to her that she hides them from everyone, even her closest partner. Do you think she's right to do so? Are there things you keep from your loved ones? I'm a fairly open person, so I don't keep secrets from those that I love. Have I made mistakes before? Absolutely. But, secrets? No. I think Olivia had the right to keep them to herself. But, was it the right thing to do? No. It caused a lot of hardship on herself that could have saved her if she had just been honest with those around her.

How does Olivia remember her childhood and how does that differ from how her father remembers her childhood? How have Olivia's and Vincent's pasts affected their actions and relationship? Both of them had such a traumatic upbringing that they began thinking that things that happened to the other actually happened to them. I believe they are trauma bonded, relying on each other to fill in the blanks where things don't add up for the other one. But, Olivia's abandonment issues definitely were a cause for hardship in her relationship with her father and rightly so. She had been abandoned by her mother and then her father when she was 14 years old. This all led to her decision to discontinue a relationship with her father.

Halfway through the book, who did you suspect of killing the siblings? Did you believe Vincent could do it? Given what I was about halfway through the book, I was beginning to think that Mr. Stewart could have been involved in some way. Not that he did the killings himself, but his involvement in his students' personal lives was definitely concerning. While I appreciate that they can be friendly with their students...he was overly so. Not something a teacher today could get away with, anyway.

Poppy claims tat film doesn't lie "like memories do". Is this true? Are there more accuracies in film, or can film be as misleading as memories? I think it can go either way. In many cases, for example, dashcams have been able to prove that someone WASN'T at fault for an accident they're being accused of causing. But, in other instances, like pictures, it can cause someone to believe something happened but the context isn't there, like Poppy viewing Lydia and Danny being close and thinking there was more to it than there was.

Poppy is shown to be a fierce advocate for women and women's rights. How do you think that affected her decisions throughout the book? Did she take risks she shouldn't have? Poppy was hellbent on proving that she could do anything that a man could do. It was the sign of the times, when women's rights were being called into question a lot, and women went through advocating for themselves and others. Today, you wouldn't catch anyone hitchhiking in order to attend a rally for some sort of rights. She definitely was a risk taker.

Danny, Vincent, and Poppy have a complex sibling relationship. Do you think birth order matters in siblings? Did it matter to Danny, Vincent and Poppy? No, I don't think the order siblings are born in have anything to do with their relationship, nor do age gaps. My sister and I are nearly a decade apart in age, but we're close as we've ever been.

Olivia believes that Margot's and Mark's memories about what happened may be colored by their friendships with Poppy and Danny. Do you think you could recall something with complete accuracy? Do you have particular memories that you know are clouded by your feelings at the time? There is one particular instance from when my now-husband was in college and we had been dating. Friends of ours are certain that me and another girl at the time kissed...though I have no recollection of this happening, and they never bring it up when the other woman is around, as we're all still fairly close friends despite being spread across the country now. But, I think a lot of my memories are clouded by the feelings at the time.

What do you make of Tom's reaction to Olivia's confession? Do you think he was overreacting, or were his expectations clear from the beginning? His expectations were clear from the very beginning. He told Olivia that lying that he didn't want lying in his life, likely because of something that had happened to him in his past, something Olivia should be well-versed with. He was absolutely not overreacting, though I wish he would have heard her out in the beginning, but his feelings were hurt and he was right to take a step back if he needed to.

Considering only the reader can glean the whole truth of the murders at the end, were you satisfied with how much knowledge Olivia and Vincent are able to gather? I was satisfied yes, but the only person searching for answers was Olivia. Vincent had known the full truth from the very beginning, just chose to keep them to himself because of his love for Lydia and what she had gone through at the hands of his own brother.

[readingforsanity]

The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco | Diego Boneta | Published 2025

A handsome young man named Julian Villareal arrives at the opulent Velasco estate to pay his respects after the unexpected death of Alejandro, his close friend and tennis rival. But he soon becomes entwined in the Velasco family's glamourous lifestyle - and their daughter Sofia's mysterious allure. Mercurial and quick-witted, Sofia seems determined to give Julian a run for his money. And he's prepared to play along - both on and off the tennis courts.

As the tension between Julian and Sofia sizzles, Julian hides a much darker secret: Alejandro's death was no accident. And the more Julian learns about the inner workings of the Velasco family, the greater the danger he uncovers. With power and status come opponents bent on toppling the empire, by blackmail, revenge or even murder. Julian's quest for answers will only lure hi deeper into this den of vipers, but teasing out Sofia's own intentions may be the steamiest - and deadliest - game of all.

Julian Villareal arrives in his best friend's hometown of San Miguel, Mexico after the two of them met in college and were tennis rivals but close otherwise. After Alejandro Velasco's death by supposed suicide, Julian decided to head to where Ale's family lived in hopes of paying his respects to them. Arriving unannounced, he is welcomed by Ale's mother and is regarded with discontent by his father, though they welcome him into their home.

Julian was the unfortunate soul that found Alejandro after his death, and though it was deemed to be a suicide, the evidence points in the direction that Ale had been murdered. Alejandro came from an affluent family, who owns a business in Mexico and will be merging with another company in only a short period of time. This is what motivated Julian to head to Mexico, to figure out what he can.

Julian is introduced to Alejandro's young sister, Sofia, who works for the family business. A tennis lover herself, she was forced into a more appropriate pasttime for females, finding herself in ballet but still having a love for tennis regardless of what her father wanted for her. Julian is instantly enamored by her allure. And after a brief discussion with Alejandro's mother, he begins keeping an eye on Sofia.

But Sofia, headstrong and smart, knows what he is up too after finding him in the same nightclub she was attending with her friends. After a friendly bout of tennis on the family's immense property, Sofia begins finding herself feeling attracted to Julian, despite being in a several years long relationship with Mateo, whom she had met in high school. Mateo, who is out of town, has been bragging to others that he plans to propose to Sofia, and this is relayed to her at the country club she and her family are members of, when an acquaintance from high school approaches her to give her congratulations. But Sofia is anything but thrilled that something like this has spread so quickly, even when the engagement isn't confirmed at this point.

But despite this, they begin planning parties and wedding details after their engagement is announced publicly. The flirtation between Sofia and Julian continues however, even going so far as to meet up with each other during hers and Mateo's engagement party. But, with the party in full swing and them in the library of the club, they are interrupted by screams. When they return to the party, they are both shocked to learn that Sofia's close friend Elizabeth is dead, having been found in the pool.

Julian is aware that someone had murdered Elizabeth. She had recently confessed to him that she couldn't swim, not having grown up in the world that Sofia had, having had to work for her admission. But despite this hang up at the engagement party, the family, along with some of their colleagues and friends, head to Switzerland in order to continue the celebrations of both the merger completion, Sofia's engagement and another announcement that is forthcoming.

That announcement is that Mateo would be receiving the title of COO, the very title that Sofia thought was hers after all the hard work she had been putting in with the merger, doing whatever it took to ensure that it would go through without a hitch. With a little bit of revenge on her mind, she sleeps with Julian while Mateo isn't home.

But the following morning, Sofia confesses that she and Mateo had snuck off to elope that morning, Sofia having devised a plan that will ensure that she is entitled to what she thought was hers. Upon returning to Mexico, Sofia and Mateo head off to the family's hunting cabin for a mini honeymoon, planning to take a larger trip later on.

Maria, Sofia's mother, is dealing with an illness and begins spending a lot of time by herself, leaving Gabriel, her father, and Julian alone. But when Julian is confronted by Lukas, one of Sofia's inner circle, with what he has learned, Julian knows that something needs to be done.

Back in LA, the person who had killed the real Julian Villareal hadn't been the fake Julian, but had been Alejandro. The fake Julian is actually Eduardo, who grew up with an impoverished life with his father who worked as a janitor at a country club. It was why Eduardo was able to ingratiate himself well into the life that the Velasco's live. When Julian began questioning Eduardo's involvement in Alejandro's life, Ale took it upon himself to stop him, accidentally killing him in the process.

Thus, he began living as Julian in order to get to the bottom of what truly happened to Alejandro. With Lukas's death on his hands, he concocts a plan that will require him to dump the body near the cabin where Sofia and Mateo are staying, hoping he can pin it on Mateo. But when he arrives, he is shocked to see that Sofia has shot and killed Mateo, in her attempt to get what she wants out of the company.

Now that the two of them know each other's deepest secrets, they have concocted a plan in order to make it seem that Mateo had killed Lukas and then himself in a strange murder-suicide plot. This would allow Eduardo to continue living his life as he is, though the real Julian's body had recently been found and he would eventually need a new identity, and for Sofia to gain the interest in her family's business that she deserves.

But, after returning home from the police station the morning after everything occurred, she tells Eduardo that she isn't going anywhere with him, but that it would be a good idea for him to get away. She was even aware of Elizabeth's involvement with her father, hoping that incapacitating her would leave him to end their affair before it went public, though she had slipped into the pool and drowned instead. Sofia confesses that in the end, she told the police that Eduardo was responsible for the deaths of both Mateo and Lukas, leaving behind evidence in his room. Eduardo complies.

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Not a Sound | Heather Gudenkauf | Published 2017

When a tragic accident leaves nurse Amelia Winn deaf, she spirals into a depression that ultimately causes her to lose everything that matters - her job, her husband, David, and her stepdaughter, Nora. Now, two years later and with the help of her hearing dog, Stitch, she is finally getting back on her feet. But when she discovers the body of a fellow nurse in the dense bush by the river, deep in the woods near her cabin, she is plunged into a disturbing mystery that could shatter the carefully reconstructed pieces of her life all over again.

As clues begin to surface, Amelia finds herself swept into an investigation that hits all too close to home. But how much is she willing to risk in order to uncover the truth and bring a killer to justice?

Emergency room and sexual assault trauma nurse Amelia Winn has spent the last two years in silence. After being involved in a direct hit-and-run that left one of her patients dead and Amelia with several injuries, including the loss of her hearing, she is attempting to get her life back on track. With her marriage on the rocks, and the status of her relationship with her stepdaughter Nora, in the balance, Amelia wants to do anything she can in order to get back into their good graces.

After her accident, Amelia dabbled with alcohol to the point that it ruined her marriage and the relationship she had with her young stepdaughter. But, on Halloween, she looks forward to a job interview working with her estranged husband's medical school friend and colleague, Dr. Joe Huntley, an oncologist that works in their tourist town in Iowa.

But, as she and her service dog, Stitch, are kayaking on the river behind her house the morning of the interview, Stitch alerts Amelia to something nefarious and refuses to return to her when called in his native Czech language. What she finds is the body of a dead woman that she recognizes as former friend and fellow nurse Gwen Locke.

With her hearing impairment keeping her from being able to her the 9-1-1 call she makes, she repeats the statement several times before hanging up and waiting. Luckily, he call went through and she was taken seriously, as police and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources begin working on the scene, including that of her childhood best friend Jake, now a detective.

When she is allowed to leave the scene, she returns home but has since missed the interview. She attempts to reach out to the clinic in the hopes of rescheduling and giving an explanation, but the office manager explains that Dr. Huntley had to leave for appointments and will be in contact.

Desperate to figure out her life and be able to spend alone time with Nora again, she ends up the next morning at the clinic with an explanation of what happened. Though she was unprofessional in missing the interview, Dr. Huntley agrees to hire her beginning on Monday morning inputting patient files into their new computerized system to allow them to have digital files. Thrilled, she reaches out to David, her estranged husband, and Jake with the good news. At the police department, she and Jake go over her statement, and make plans to celebrate her new job that night over dinner.

Excited at the prospect of a "date" with Jake, with whom she's actually had a crush on since childhood, but feeling guilty about what has happened to her friend. After her accident and her drinking continued to become a problem, she realizes that there were several people she lost contact with, Gwen included.

With dinner over with with Jake, Amelia begins her new job inputting the data into the computer. Slowly, she begins to realize that some of the information typically found inside of the files is missing, though thinks nothing of it at the time.

The investigation into Gwen's murder continues, with her husband Marty suspected, though his alibi ends up checking out the day before her funeral occurs. While kayaking again with Stitch, she also notices someone standing at the crime scene that doesn't sit well with her. Going home, she ultimately learns that this is P. McNaughton, a name that is prominent in her small town as they had been "founders". This ends up being Peter, the son of a former wealthy couple, though their finances went belly up. She learns from another nurse friend that she, Gwen and Peter had all gone to high school together and that he and Gwen had been fairly close friends, which is understandable given how he repeatedly made comments on sympathy posts on Gwen's Facebook page.

But Amelia is sure that he is the one behind Gwen's death, and this is further thought when she illegally breaks into his garage and finds imcriminating evidence. But she is discovered, though she is able to get away.

Jake isn't happy with this, as Peter is wanting to take legal action against her. Amelia though is still certain he is behind it, even more so when he confronts her in the parking lot of her speech therapy appointment. Though Peter tells her that he wants her to leave him alone, he says that she needs to speak to her husband about what happened with Gwen.

Now with this thought in her head, she has agreed to meet with David and Nora for dinner the following night. When she arrives, David seems thrilled by her presence, as does Nora. They enjoy a quiet meal together. And when David is called away to assist in a delivery, as he is works in OB-GYN and labor and delivery, he agrees to allow her to remain with Nora,

Deciding to snoop in his patient files looking for something specific, she comes across the file of a female patient named Jo Ellen Beadle, which was hinted that Gwen was wanting to help another pregnant patient. Jake informed Amelia that at her death, Gwen was found to be 3 months pregnant, something her husband Marty wasn't aware of, though he was sure it was because they had had several miscarraiges in their attempt to add onto their family, and he thought Gwen was waiting to learn that everything was in the all clear before letting him know what happened.

Amelia confirms that Gwen was in fact a patient of David's at his clinic in regards to his pregnancy, as was this other woman. She also learns that Jo Ellen was a patient of Dr. Huntley's, having been diagnosed with a rare cancer that had been in remission, though when she was six months pregnant, she and her baby died during and shortly after childbirth.

Knowing that she is on the cusp of learning exactly what happened to Gwen, she begins to question David's involvement in Gwen's murder. When she comes out and accuses him the following day after he had called the clinic office requesting he pick up Nora, only to call the police stating she had been driving erratically, all in front of Nora, and then the following day is fired from her job after alcohol is found in her desk, she knows that David is trying to sabotage her, though he is unsure of why.

Knowing that despite Peter's request to have her leave him alone, she goes to the book store that he owns speaks with him. When Amelia says she confronted her husband, he claims that he never said husband, instead saying Huntley. Knowing now that Dr. Huntley is the one she should be worried about, she returns to the office with the intent of stealing patint files, including Jo Ellen's and anything else.

She is successful, getting the file along with some insurance billing papers in order to investigate. When she realizes, after speaking with another patient's wife regarding treatment, that Dr. Huntley is overtreating patients with cancer with drugs and treatments they don't need or even diagnosing healthy patients with cancer in order to claim the insurance money, she realizes exactly who was responsible for Gwen's death.

Though she reaches out to Jake in order to get him to listen to what she has learned, she is confronted by Huntley himself. He uses a stun gun on Stitch, which incapacitates him. Amelia is able to get herself locked inside of her home, but her hearing loss keeps her from knowing exactly where Huntley is or if he has infiltrated her home.

She climbs out of the window with the intent of heading off to her neighbors house, as he had shown interest in helping her previously when she thought she was being harassed by an unknown person, but this time, his home remains closed and dark. The snow storm falling around her keeps herself from moving easily, and Huntley quickly catches up with her. Amelia puts up a fight, and despite his own injuries, Stitch finds her and helps her continuously.

While Huntley pleads with Amelia to call Stitch's attack off, which Amelia agrees too, she finally uses a command that will end it entirely, using his native language of Czeck: kill.

With Huntley dead, and the police having finally arrived after Evan saw the foot prints and blood surrounding her home, Amelia has gotten away with "murder", bringing both her dog and Jake with her to the hospital.

Several months later, she is kayaking with Nora, Stitch and Evan, whom she has gotten close to recently, even accepting a job with leading his tourist groups out onto the river. Nora likely will continue to live with her permanently, as David was aware of what Huntley was doing but was blackmailed into keeping his secret, and is now facing a trial for not reporting it at all, though it was simply because he was wanting to protect Nora and Amelia from any harm.

She and Jake are now in a relationship with each other, finally happy with each other after everything Amelia went through and five years after the suicide death of his wife.

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The Haunting of Emily Grace | Elena Taylor | Expected Publication 2025 | ARC

Drowing in grief, Emily Grace has lost her home, her friends, her career. Only one lifeline remains - a job working for an eccentric millionaire. Along with his wife, he's been building a mansion on a secluded island surrounded by a harsh and unforgiving sea. But when she disappears under mysterious circumstances, Emily Grace is hired to finish the project.

Locals believe the house is cursed, but their warnings go unheeded as Emily Grace works to rebuild her life. After what she's been through, nothing can scare her - except perhaps the attention of a handsome man offering more than friendship. And yet, there's something about this solitary fortress. Accidents. Mishaps. Ghostly whispers through the surrounding forest, footsteps when she's completely alone...

Is there truly a curse or is the ethereal specter in the window an omen of something more sinister?

After a tumultuous year, Emily Grace is restarting her life after losing her 5-year-old daughter less than a year ago to cancer. Desperate to get back on her feet after the grief weighed her down for the last several months, she accepts a job finishing the work on a home off of Salish Island in an area called Monk's Rock.

Monk's Rock is known to be haunted by the locals of the island. Ferrying over from the mainland, she arrives but is hesitant to make her way to the house embedded into rocks itself. But when she does, she is thrilled to meet her new boss, Cameron, who after her predecessor was injured on the job.

Cameron is a wealthy individual, whose wife Katrina, disappeared without a trace also less than a year ago. The home was designed by Katrina and Emily Grace is hired to finish the carpentry work. But to Emily Grace's dislike, she learns that Cameron's daughter, Chloe, will be joining them over the weekend. He and Chloe were estranged, a product of a one-night stand in his early 20's that resulted in a marriage that didn't last long.

After Chloe went involved in a car accident that left her cousin, Mallory, dead and herself going through several surgeries in order to regain some sort of semblance of her past self, she arrives on the island upset to find another person within the house. But, this is quickly abated when the two of them hit it off after Cameron is unexpectedly called off the island for business.

She begins working in the house slowly, and spending her afternoons on Salish, letting herself get to know the locals, including Gina who works and owns the local coffee shop and Juniper, a local pyshic that came recommended by Gina. Against her better judgment, Emily Grace begins spending a lot of time with Juniper after she gives her reassurance that her daughter is okay whereever she is.

As her time on the island goes on, strange things begin to happen. While both Chloe and Cameron out of the house, Emily Grace believes that someone has broken into the house but when she investigates finds nothing. All the while, she gets closer and closer to Adrian, the ferryman's first mate and a local handyman. But, Cameron is less than happy about this. Cameron believes that Adrian had something to do with Katrina's disappearance, while Adrian says the same thing about Cameron.

Unsure of what to believe, but the odd things continuing to happen the more often she is in the home, Emily Grace has to rely on her gut.

In the end, after a final showdown in the home with the individuals who had been terrorizing Emily Grace and Cameron, leading to a fire that destroys the End of the World, the name of Cameron's modern home, they learn that Chloe, Katrina, Chloe's mother and Cameron's first wife Isabelle and Mallory were all involved in the scheme against Cameron. Their end game was to kill Cameron and blame it on a suicide in order for them to all gain some sort of monetary gain.

But this plan was thwarted by Emily Grace's arrival on the island, along with her newfound friendship with Juniper, who owned a gun and wasn't afraid to use it.

In the end, Cameron ultimately decides not to rebuild the End of the World, but hires Emily Grace to build his home on Salish Island instead. Emily Grace and Adrian begin a loving relationship, where he buys her a puppy that she had promised to buy Eva before her death.

[readingforsanity]

The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | Published 1988 | August Book Club Pick

Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different - and far more satisfying - than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following out dreams.

A boy named Santiago, a shepherd from Spain, begins having a sort of telepathic experience in his dreams that tell him that he needs to take a trek to the Pyramids in Egypt where a treasure lies.

When this is confirmed by a Gyspy woman who reads his future as well as a man calling himself a King, the boy begins making preparations for his journey.

During this journey, he gives up his herd of sheep, begins working in a crystal shop with another man, and when he has enough money, he continues his journey.

Eventually, he begins his journey to Egypt. He crosses the vast desert along with several other individuals. He meets an Englishman, who is on his own Personal Legend in finding the Alchemist, the knower of all.

When they reach the Oasis, the Englishman is successful. But the person he takes under his wing is Santiago. He agrees to take him on the final leg of the trip to Egypt. At the end, the boy becomes an Alchemist himself, as well as locating the treasure in Egypt, allowing himself to return back to the woman of his dreams in the Oasis.

[readingforsanity]

The Bright Years | Sarah Damoff | Published 2025 | GoodReads Debut Darlings Challenge

Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn't told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn't told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.

When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian's son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family's history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them - or herself - while there's still time.

Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.

Ryan Bright meets Lillian Wright in a library. When he approaches her, the two of them hit it off, attempting to make quiet conversation in the quiet room. When they decide to take their first meeting to a Greek restaurant nearby, it becomes quickly apparent that this is the beginning of a beautiful love story.

And so it is...for a time. Six months, Ryan takes Lillian to meet his mother, Elise, for the first time. Without parents of her own, Lillian is thrilled to have a mother figure to look up too, as their relationship quickly takes on that of a mother and daughter. When Ryan was a small boy, Elise and Ryan fled from his father, Barton, who was an alcoholic and often became violent. Because of this, Ryan has vowed to never drink or do anything that could hurt Lillian.

The two of them are married, and though Ryan would love to have children, Lillian is hesitant. She has been keeping a big secret from him: 12 years prior, she had given birth to a son, and placed him up for adoption. She had been in a relationship with a musician who was up and coming in the music world. When his band is given the opportunity to go on tour, the two of them split. However, this was on the very day that Lillian was going to give him the news about her pregnancy.

Instead, she went through it quietly, and gave the baby up for adoption knowing she would be unable to care for him himself. After she comes to terms with this, Lillian and Ryan discover they are expecting. Though nervous, the two of them are thrilled about the new addition to their family. But unfortunately, Lillian experiences a devastating miscarriage early on.

Desperate to get through her life without adding on another heartbreaking pregnancy, she decides that this was it. But again, she finds herself with child. A daughter, whom she names Georgette, after her mother and Elisa, after his. Nicknamed Jet, she comes rip roaring into the world with a healthy set of lungs.

Together, the two of them begin to parent their child. But Ryan becomes more and more engrossed in his world of art, spending time at the art gallery he owns instead of at home with his wife and daughter. When the gallery begins to flounder, Lillian reluctantly returns to her previous job at a bank, determined to keep her small family from going under.

Soon, Lillian begins to notice the drinking. Despite his earlier promise of never becoming like his father, Ryan has been drinking and been drinking for some time, often hiding his addiction from her by hiding away alcohol bottles. When he throws a beer bottle at Lillian during a discussion about their apartment lease coming to an end, she's both shocked and devastated. Ryan, knowing he has made a collasal mistake in his marriage, leaves.

For years, the two of them live apart despite never divorcing. Ryan spends little time with Jet, and Lillian becomes quite close with a neighbor, another single mother Shauna and her young son Kendall, who goes by Kendi. Kendi and Jet are best friends, which makes the two moms happy that their friendship can continue to blossom. Shauna experienced the death of her husband, and is open to love. When she meets Michael, Lillian is happy for her.

But despite having the option to, Lillian and Ryan continue to stay legally married to one another. After Barton, Ryan's father, passes away, Lillian and Jet join Elise at the funeral in Memphis. Ryan appears as well, and he seems to be sober. The two of them talk, Lillian hinting that she never wanted anything bad to happen to their relationship, but they are interrupted by their daughter.

That conversation doesn't finish for a few more weeks, when Ryan explains that he has been sober for a while, and that he would like to continue where they left off, to get to know his wife and daughter again. Lillian happily agrees. And for a time, this works. Jet takes after Ryan in the art department, photography being a specialty of hers. With the help of Shauna and Jet, Ryan plans a surprise proposal for Lillian, asking for her hand in re-marriage.

But this excitement is quickly dampered. While Kendi is staying with Lillian and Jet while Shauna and Michael, newly married, are on their honeymoon, Jet is intent on proving that Kendi isn't her entire world and she spends more time with other friends. But when she returns home to find her mother dead on the floor, things quickly go awry. It appears that Lillian suffered some kind of cardiac event, leading to her untimely death.

Brought down by the grief of losing her mother, Jet is forced to move in with her father. But after his wife's demise, he takes back to the bottle again, forcing Jet to leave and move in with her grandmother. Wanting to drop out of school, but going through with graduation anyway, Jet doesn't have much direction in life.

Eventually, she gets back on track. After Lillian's death, she blamed Kendi, but the two of them talk over ice cream one New Year's Eve and their friendship continues as if nothing ever happens. When the two of them are camping together, Kendi explains that his relationship with his girlfriend ended because of her...because Kendi has been in love with Jet for as long as he could remember.

Jet does not feel the same way, and they ultimately go their separate ways. But when the two of them are reunited after Elise's death, Jet quickly realizes what she has been missing and the two of them begin a relationship. They do eventually marry, and have a daughter of their own, named Apricity.

At this point, Ryan knows that he needs to do better by his granddaughter, believing that he can be there for her unlike how he was there for his daughter. With several years of sobriety under his belt, he eventually learns that he has cirrohsis of the liver from his years of damaging his body.

He dies, with Jet by his side after announcing that she and Kendi are going to have another baby. He leaves behind a letter for his granddaughter, so everyone can grieve in their own way.

*I did forget to mention that Lillian's son, Davis, does find and reach out to Jet. The two of them meet and quickly become close, bringing into their relationship a sister-in-law and a niece and nephew for Jet*.

[readingforsanity]

I Am Watching You | Teresa Driscoll | Published 2017

When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it - until she realizes they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she's decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she waks up to the news that one of the girls - beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard - has disappeared.

A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she's not the only one who can't forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters - letters that make her fear for her life.

Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna's friends and family might have something to hide. Anna's best friend, Sarah, hasn't been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night - and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own.

Someone knows where Anna is - and they're not telling. But they are watching Ella.

In July 2015, florist Ella Longfield finds herself on the train in London heading back to her hotel from a conference. Overhearing two young girls talking about their first trip to London on their own after the successful completion of their GCSEs, they welcome the presence of two young men in their midst. As a parent, she finds herself questioning whether or not she should say something to these girls, to protect themselves in some way. But, she knows that she'll be told to mind her own business.

When she overhears one of the men tell the girls that they had both been released from prison that night are heading off to meet friends for a celebration. Ella's resolve in intervening in this becomes stronger, and after two of them walk off together with the intent of heading to the buffet car, she follows. But along the way, she overhears the two of them engaging in sex in one of the bathrooms and decides that these girls aren't really nice girls like she thought.

The following morning, Ella is disgusted and shocked to learn that Anna, one of the young girls she witnessed on the train, had gone missing. Knowing now that she should have spoken up, she takes her confession to the police.

A year later, Ella's involvement as a witness into Anna's disappearance had been leaked in the media, bringing a slew of problems not only for her floristry business but in her personal life as well. The guilt she feels over Anna's disappearance is debilitating, and is coming into her personal life with her husand Tony and their teenage son, Luke.

We are also introduced to Anna's father, Henry, who is harboring his own secrets, as well as her mother and sister, Barbara and Jenny. Additionally, we also have the point of view of Sarah, the other young girl.

With the anniversary of Anna's disappearance coming up with no sign of her, the media is planning an anniversary special in order to appeal to anyone else that may be able to come forward. Barbara had agreed to give an interview, though Henry and Jenny politely declined their involvement. Meanwhile, Ella has begun receiving postcards with threatening messages that continue to get worse with each time they arrive.

With the public's new interest in Anna's case, Ella reaches out to private investigator Michael. He had previously worked as a police officer but had left the force three years previously. Despite his advice on taking the post cards to the police directly, Ella is certain she knows that the sender of these messages is Barbara, Anna's mother. She agrees to go to the police if Barbara turns out not to be the perpetrator in this situation.

When Michael confronts her, he disagrees that Barbara is the individual involved and Ella agrees to give them to the police in order to see if they can lift any fingerprints from the cards though they are not successful.

Before the anniversary special is run, Jenny receives a call from a friend that Sarah has ended up in the hospital in an apparent suicide attempt. Jenny is overrun by guilt, as she, Tim and Paul had confronted Sarah in her involvement in Anna's disappearance. To be truthful, the three of them were supposed to accompany Sarah and Anna on their trip to London, but various things came up rendering them unable to attend. Jenny knows that this is likely the reason why Sarah did what she had done.

But Sarah is harboring her own guilt. When she is released from the hospital, she reaches out to her own older sister, Lily, who had abandoned her family several years prior, choosing to live elsewhere with a group of people. Lily agrees to meet with her and the two of them talk. Sarah explains that she knows that their father is likely involved in Anna's disappearance.

Both Lily and Sarah were sexually abused by their father, though neither of them told the other. Lily tried to confess to their mother, who did not believe her and ultimately led to the reason why Lily left. She thought by her leaving that it would protect her sister, but it did the opposite, bringing on her own guilt.

Sarah confesses to Lily that she had brought up texting their Dad to meet them at the club they had ended up at with Karl and Antony, the two men they met on the train. Though they had arrived together, Sarah confesses that she became a bit obsessed with Antony, and after they both decided to ignore them shortly after arriving, she did not take Anna wanting to leave seriously, wanting to stay behind. She told Anna to take a cab, but Anna pleaded with her to come with her back to their hotel but Sarah refused. She told Anna that she would reach out to her dad.

And because of what happened to Sarah and Lily in their past, she thinks her dad could be responsible for Anna's disappearance. This is quickly put to bed due to her solid alibi. And the fact that Karl had been located in Spain, with a young woman with blonde hair similar to Anna. An hours long standoff takes place between Karl and the Spain police, only to later find out that the "hostage" was not Anna, but her live-in girlfriend and Antony is also in Spain, both of them having fled from the country with fake passports after Anna's disappearance, both of them fearing that their involvement with the two girls the night before would bring heat on them, causing them to go back to jail. In the end, they'll likely return to jail. But they are exonerated for their potential involvement with Anna.

With the case having gone cold, Ella thinks she can begin moving on with her life. Sarah and Lily begin working through their past traumas with the young woman who Lily lives with, Caroline, who agrees that she can remain with them in their home if she follows the rules she sets for her.

With Michael, Ella agrees to go with him to meet with Barbara at their farmhouse in Cornwall. She has recently left Anna's father, who had had an affair on the night that Anna went missing and wasn't there to protect their daughter. Henry has refused to tell her who this could be. During their talks, which had previously not gone well, Ella finds a picture of Tim, one of the group of friends. She explains to Michael that Tim had been on the train that night, that she had nearly bumped into him when she tried to flee after hearing what happened with Sarah and Antony.

We learn that after her row with Sarah, Anna found Tim outside the club in her attempt to hail a cab to her hotel. Tim takes her to a flat nearby, claiming that he will call a taxi for her once they arrive there. But, the longer she is there without the presence of a taxi to bring her back to their hotel, she grows increasingly uncomfortable.

In the end, Tim was responsible for Anna's disappearance and untimely death. He had been obsessed with Anna for years, unhappy with her decision to be close to other people. He had faked his trip to Scotland, only going there for a 24 hour period of time to secure an alibi for himself. But had kept Anna's body in the freezer inside of the flat that had been owned by his father and willed to him upon his death.

Tim had attacked Luke, Ella's son, who was trying to find a replacement for himself at her florist shop, deciding he needed to focus on his studies after he had learned he would be a father during the last school year, later learning that his girlfriend had had a miscarriage and ended their relationship because of it. Thankfully, Luke survived the attack and Tim will eventually go on trial.

After Anna's body is released by the coroner for a funeral, Barbara comes to Ella, informing her that the first two postcards she received in the mail were from Jenny, who confessed this after Michael visited Barbara the first time. But she had talked about this with Tim, who sent the last several of them. Barbara reassures her that the postcards will no longer be coming and requests that Ella make the flower arrangements for Anna's funeral, which Ella happily agrees.

[readingforsanity]

Poison Wood | Jennifer Moorhead | Publishing 2025

Ambitious crime reporter Rita Meade is riding high after her docuseries on the Broken Bayou serial killer. But when an anonymous tip promises the story behind a skull found deep in the Louisiana forest, she hesitates. Because this one strikes too close to home.

As a teenager, Rita attended POison Wood Therapeutic Academy for Girls in that forest, but the school shuttered its doors after a series of disturbing incidents. Now the man who confesses to the murder of her classmate has recanted, and Rita's father, the judge who put him away, has fallen ill.

Summoned back to those haunted woods, Rita sorts through the mysteries of a rotting schoolhouse basement. She digs up emotions she buried along with her mother - and secrets she's tried hard to forget. But when her investigation spreads to her family tree, the TV cameras swing her way. How far will she go for a story that could threaten everything and everyone she loves?

Rita Meade, a top crime reporter for NCN, finds herself in Miami about to relive a tragic past that she would rather have forgotten. After a human skull was found in the basement of the boarding school she attended for nearly four years, Rita is hellbent on finally getting the answers that she needs. Brought to Miami by a source, Laura Sanders, who tells her that the two of them should meet, she prepares herself for anything.

But Rita is in Miami on her own accord. She hasn't told her boss, Dom, the truth about her connection to Poison Wood Therapeutic School for Girls and until she speaks with Laura, refuses to do so. She hasn't even told Carl, her closest confidant and cameraman, about the connection. But when Laura Sanders washes up on the beach, in an apparent accidental drowning, the very day they were going to meet, Rita breaks her own rule and goes live to report about it.

When she receives a call from her stepmother, Debby, informing her that her father has suffered a serious heart attack, one that is dubbed the widowmaker on account of it's survival rates, Rita rushes back to her hometown of Riverbend, Louisana, a place that she doesn't typically return to. Her father, though having suffered such a massive cardiac event, is okay and is expected to make a full recovery.

But, this news doesn't negate the fact that she chose to lie to Carl and Dom about her involvement, therefore finds herself taken off the case and a new crime reporter on the beat takes over. Rita wants to cooperate with them, agreeing to give Erin and Carl anything that comes up that she knows in regards to the human skull and Laura Sanders.

We learn that Laura's true identity is that of Heather Hadwick, the very student who had gone missing and been presumed dead since that fateful night in 2002. The former caretaker of the property, Johnny Adair, who confessed and has been in prison for 17 years, will be able to be exonerated for the crime he didn't commit despite giving a confession...though he later recanted this.

This all becomes complicated, as Rita's own father, Judge Mac Meade, was the one who allowed his confession and subsequent evidence against Johnny to be admissable in court. Rita worries that her father's past cases will come under scrutiny with this new information coming to light, though the judge himself isn't as worried about it.

Reporters begin descending on the small town in Louisana, each one wanting to get the scoop first. Rita reunites with two former classmates from Poison Wood, Summer and Katrina. The two of them remained friends after the school shut down, and each one of them with powerful parents, like Rita's. Summer's mom was once the governor of the state, and Katrina's father was the DA, also involved in Johnny Adair's trial and sentencing him to life in prison.

Desperate for answers, Rita returns to the school and finds the journals and other confidential information left behind in the basement. Taking them with her, she finds that she is not the only other person trespassing on the property, seeing a woman running off into the woods wearing a pair of blue scrubs.

She later learns that this is Rosalie, Johnny's sister. Rosalie refuses to speak to Rita, after the involvement of her father in Johnny's wrongful conviction. Not to be put off, Rita continues working on the case alongside Erin and Carl, also meeting a young man named Grant.

After Johnny is officially released from prison, Rita learns Grant's true identity. He is Johnny Adair's advocate after prison, informing the public during a press conference that Johnny will be giving a statement and won't be taking questions. Grant was unaware of Rita's identity when the two of them (presumably) had a fling the night before, but Rita is successful in speaking with Rita and Johnny.

Johnny informs Rita, off the record, that there was something in his cottage, the location of the crime scene that ultimately led to his arrest, and that he is going to be taking it to the police once and for all, despite providing them with this information. He had sent Rosalie that day to get it, but Rita had stopped that from happening after she saw Rosalie.

It is a red coat, one belonging to Heather.

Through the desire to put this case to bed quickly, the recreation of the skull and who it could be comes back quickly. It is revealed to have been that of Archibald Crowley, the former headmaster of the school. It was thought that after an incident regarding embezzlement of school finds that Crowley had fled to his home country of Britain to avoid charges. But, instead, he had been in the basement of the school the entire time.

In the end, Summer, Rosalie, Judge Meade and Rita end up in the basement of Poison Wood, all lured there for the truth to come out. Johnny is also there, having heard the screams coming from that location and knowing his sister could be involved, he took off after Rita when the two of them had been discussing the contents of the red coat's pocket, which would lead to the true arrest of the person involved.

We learn that it was Summer's mother, Eleanor Chamberlain, who had killed Crowley and left his body to rot in the basement. After these events, she had been the biggest proponent of the school's closing and always pushed for the school to be torn down and something else to go up in its place.

Summer, desperate to save her mother, tells everyone in the basement that, at the time, she had found out she was pregnant after an affair with Crowley. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, she just wanted to get out of the school and used Crowley in order to secure the funds to do so. They ultimately ended up in Johnny's cottage. But when Heather walked in, on her way to meet her mother at the gates of the school after begging to be picked up, she became a witness to everything happening, though she ultimately was able to get away, leaving behind her red coat.

Eleanor gave Crowley a fatal dose of insulin. She is a diabetic, having it on hand for when the need arises, and insulin becomes posion to those who don't actually need it.

Rita is able to handle Eleanor by using her taser, and she is arrested for the crimes she committed. Summer gives an interview, both to the police and to Rita, on the condition that she tell the truth and nothing but the truth. She claims that her mother didn't want it to get out that her teenage daughter had been sleeping with the adult headmaster of the school, and after everything went down, she spent 9 months in a home for unwed mothers and gave her daughter up in a private, closed adoption.

Rita, in the end, quits her job as a reporter, deciding it's time to start slowing down in life, after the events at Poison Wood and just the year before in the events of the Broken Bayou (though the events aren't discussed and would be discussed in Moorhead's prior novel).

[readingforsanity]

The Nickel Boys | Colson Whitehead | Published 2019

When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood's only salvation is his friendship with fellow "delinquient" Turner, which deepens despite Turner's conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes even more perilous, the tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narriave that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.

Raised by a grandmother after his own mother abandoned him, Elwood Curtis is the product of the 1960s South. Though smart and generally well-behaved, Elwood is naive when it comes to the true matters of the world. As a child, spending his days in the kitchen while his grandmother cleans rooms upstairs, he fantasizes of the days that he will be able to own his own restaurant.

As he gets older, he begins to partake in the movement for civil rights, along with his grandmother. When he is offered to take college level classes during his Junior year of high school, he becomes entralled with the thought that his hard work is beginning to pay off. But on the first day, intent on getting to the location on time, he hitches a ride with another man driving a Plymouth. But when they are pulled over and Elwood learns that the car was stolen, he is treated as if he himself was the criminal.

During his trial, he is sentenced to an undetermined amount of time at a reform school. Promised that it will include both hard labor and an education, Elwood realizes that he got off a lot easier than he likely would have otherwise. But when he arrives at the school, he faces the hard truth: while there is hard work and education, the education is nothing like he is expecting, instead practicing thing he's already worked on in his youth.

He befriends another young man named Turner, and the two of them stick close together. After Elwood faces his first time in what is known as the Ice Cream Factory, where he is lashed along his back side until he passes out, he realizes that the reform school is anything but a school, instead a torture chamber.

Ultimately, he is released at some point, and heads North, ending up in New York City. Instead of opening his own restaurat, he begins working for a moving company and eventually opens his own.

When the former location of the school is going to be raised up and used for something else, they begin finding the bodies of boys and teens who had once resided there. And we learn that Elwood isn't actually Elwood, but instead is Turner.

After an unfortunate incident, Turner and Elwood decide to escape before Elwood is taken back to the ice cream factory a second time. They are able to get far away, but they are found by the tortuous souls running the school. Turner continues to run while Elwood is shot to death with a shotgun. Turner begins using Elwood's name, promising his deceased friend to do well by him.

But now that missing boys have been dug up, the truth about the school finally coming to light, Turner knows that he needs to tell the truth about himself and what happened, along with others who have stayed in touch over the years. Unsure of what his future holds, he knows he needs to do right by the boy whose life was given so his could continue.

[readingforsanity]

Great Big Beautiful Life | Emily Henry | Published 2025

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulizter-prize winning human thundercloud. And they're both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years - or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she'll choose the person who'll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice's head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice - and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She's ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the-core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can't swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they're in the same room.

And it's becoming abdundantly clear that their story - just like the tale Margaret's spinning - could be a mystery, tragedy or love ballad...depending on who's telling it.

Alice Scott is a journalist, following in the footsteps of her parents who were well-known during their heyday. Back in her home state of Georgia, Alice is thrilled to have discovered the long sought after hidden location of famed Margaret Ives, the last remaining member of the House of Ives family.

The Ives family were known for making modern journalism what it is today, but not without several issues along the way. So much so, Margaret believes her family is cursed...that her family is the curse.

Margaret agrees to discuss the possibility of a memoir. Now in her early 80s, time is slowing down for her and after Alice's constant pushing, Margaret agrees to simply meeting and talking with her. But what Alice isn't aware of is that she is competing for the job with an already established biographer, Hayden Anderson. Hayden had recently spent the last few years with a man named Len, who wanted to put his life onto paper before his thoughts left him, having recently been diagnosed with dementia.

Hayden's book was an instant hit and his friendship with Len was one for the books. But Hayden is stoic, not truly interested in writing the book on Margaret but feeling like he has no other choice.

When Margaret decides to give them both a month-long trial run, the two of them work out their schedules, deciding to meet with Margaret on their own every other day with Sunday's off. In the meantime, Alice takes a liking to the small Georgian town and even more so to Hayden. With the town as small as it is, they find themselves running into each other quite a bit.

All the while, the two of them are getting closer without the ability to discuss what the other is talking about with Margaret.

During her meetings with Margaret, she talks about her family, going so far back as to the beginnings of her family all the way through to the end when her marriage to rock star Cosmo ended in tragedy.

Along the way, she discusses the relationship she had with her sister, Laura, and after the two of them had been caught on a night on the town on the very night their grandfather passed away, Laura bent into herself. Eventually, she puts herself into a treatment center in Arizona, that they later learn is actually a cult. The doctor, Dr. Ryan Atwood, isn't a doctor at all, but after sending private investigators and seeing how happy Laura was, the Ives family decided not to do anything.

But eventually, Laura's health takes a dive and the cult she has entered into begins extorting the Ives family for money. Ultimately, Laura is able to get out and the cult is apprehended. But Laura still isn't doing well. After the trial, Laura decides to remain overseas in Switzerland. And Margaret is forced to deal with the untimely death of her husband.

Hayden and Alice decide to see where their relationship goes, even after the end of their four weeks with Margaret. On the day that Alice is meant to perform her pitch to Margaret, she begins to question everything when Hayden mentions that his mother's name is Nicolett. In her first weeks on the small island, Alice had purchased one of Margaret's art pieces, titled Nicolett, and she even had a relative with that name as well.

Alice is able to put together that Margaret has been lying the entire time and forces her to tell the truth. Prior to Cosmo's death, the two of them had been rushing to the emergency room after Margaret began experiencing symptoms of a miscarriage, though at the time, it was told to the press that she had had appendicitis. During their travels, they were chased by paparazzi, leading to a vehicle accident.

Cosmo died in surgery, and while Margaret didn't have a miscarriage, she was forced to deal with her pregnancy in secret, using Dr. Cecil Willoughby. Cecil, whom also lives in town though Alice didn't put two and two together until recently, had also been married to her sister, the two of them getting close slowly after she had escaped from the cult.

But, Margaret spent the last several decades hiding from the truth. That after her daughter was born, 9 months after the accident, she had given her up for adoption and that Hayden is actually her grandson. Margaret, now in her elderly years, wanted to reunite with her daughter and used this book as a pretense to get him to meet her, but he ultimately gave up the book wanting it to to Alice. Though Alice is also told that there was no competition.

In the end, now knowing the truth, Alice decides to head off to stay with her mother who still lives in Georgia and ending things with Hayden, being unable to tell him the truth because it isn't her story to tell. She writes to Margaret, who sends this to Hayden, and the two of them are reunited when Alice confessed that she loved him in that letter.

In the end, Margaret and Nicolett agee to be reunited in the end. Alice and Hayden ultimately write the book on Margaret's life together, and are expecting a daughter, whom they name after Margaret's sister, Laura.

[readingforsanity]

Remain | Nicholas Sparks with M. Night Shyamalan | Publishing 2025 | ARC

When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend's summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia's deathbed revelation - that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family - sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed and breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.

Tate and Wren find themselves forging an immediate connection, one that neither has ever experienced before. But Tate gradually discovers that below the surface of Wren's idyllic small-town life, hatred, jealousy and greed are festering, threatening their fragile relationship just as it begins to blossom. Tate realizes that in order to free Wren from an increasingly desperate fate, he will need to unearth the truth about her past before time runs out...a quest that will make him doubt whether we can ever believe the stories we tell about ourselves, and the laws that govern our existence. Love - while transformative - can sometimes be frightening.

After the death of his beloved sister Sylvia to a heart condition, Tate is released from the psychiatric facility that he voluntarily put himself in to deal with his depression and his grief. He is reunited with Oscar, his best friend, commissioned to design Oscar's family's new summer home on the Cape, Tate, while still reeling from the death of his sister, feels hopeful that this new reality is going to give him what he needs.

With Oscar's help, Tate finds his accommodations at the site of a former bed and breakfast, owned by a woman named Joyce. The caretakers, Louise and Reece, remain on the property as caretakers and groundskeepers despite the B&B having closed down more than two years ago and finding itself at the helm of a major legal battle on who owns the property.

Believing himself to be the only person staying within the house, he is shocked when he comes downstairs to find a young woman in her late 20s doing yoga in the living room. Claiming to live in the house, Tate worries that something got mixed up and that there are other patrons staying in the house. When he approaches Louise about this, she claims that he's the only persn to have stayed on the property in the last two years and after investigating, confirms that the other bedrooms on the property are unoccupied.

Flustered, Tate continues to go about his days, helping Oscar and Lorena design their dream home while the town prepares for a huge music festival occurring over the weekend. Tate also reunites with the woman who had suddenly vanished, seemingly in thin air. She tells him that her name is Wren, and it was her grandmother who had owned the bed and breakfast prior to her death in 2020 from Covid.

During their talks, Tate realizes that Wren is the woman that he has been encountering in seemingly supernatural occurrences during the night in the bathroom in the hallway upstairs. In these encounters, Wren is sitting in the bathtub, before appearing to be flung backwards into the bathtub. Louise also confirms that Wren had died two years prior, an accident when she had slipped and hit her head on the faucet of the bathtub, being found a few days later and the autopsy confirmed that she had died of an accidental drowning after blunt force trauma.

Tate realizes that Wren is continuing to live in the spring of 2023, the year that she died on the very weekend that is coming up. Based off what he learns, and clues from Wren herself, Tate surmises that her death was anything but accidental. Determined to help her, as his growing romantic feelings for her and her for him makes him want to help get the answers in order for Wren to be able to finally be put to rest.

With the help of Oscar, they learn that despite her death being listed as accidental, the coroner initially claimed that her death was suspicious. Tate confirms that this is the case, as he always sees Wren with a towel wrapped around her but according to the report, towels weren't found in the bathroom after Louise discovered her on the Monday following her death.

During a talk, Wren discloses that she had been married at the time of her death, though they were separated and divorce proceedings with going through. Her husband, Griffin, is a prominent figure in the town, the event holder of the music festival coming up. Finding out the truth, Tate learns that Griffin is seeing another woman, and had been prior to his marriage to Wren, and that he had been violent with her in the past and she refused to press charges.

Additionally, Wren also states that her partner at the toy store that she had owned in the town was stealing from her, taking out loans and faking invoices but she was unable to do anything about it as he is listed as a co-owner and legally can take out loans with the business as collateral. She had a list of things to help prove her case, but died prior to being able to do anything about it.

Lastly, Wren also discloses that she had a stalker in her former friend Dax. She had sought out his advice regarding Griffin's use of drugs and alcohol and somehow, signals got mixed and suddenly, Dax was professing his love for her despite the both of them being married. Dax's wife, Tessa, didn't take kindly to this, thinking Wren was making advances on her husband but Wren claims that she had found Dax outside of her house watching her through the windows and the police were contacted after Reece chased him off the property.

Ultimately, on the night of the festival, now two years exactly since Wren's death, Tate learns the shocking truth. While downstairs in the cellar, Tate is attacked by an unseen attacker. After being able to get away, he and Oscar go to the festival in the hopes of finding one of the three men absent. But, they are saddened to learn that all three of their suspects were at the festival and accounted for at the time of Tate's attack.

Returning, we see exactly what happened to Wren. She had returned home after seeing a band she favored, planning to take a bath after a long evening. But, two attackers entered the bathroom, killing her and taking the evidence of their wrongdoings with them. Tate is also able to see this from his current presence in the present.

He learns that it was Reece and Louise who had killed her. Reece, being one of the last remaining relatives of Joyce, was upset that he may not have received the money he believed himself to be entitled to after her death, as Wren was listed as the only beneficiary. Since he would have benefited from her death, they concocted this plan, Louise in on it too.

Now, 8 months later, after suffering injuries after the house had gone up in flames, both Oscar and Tate have recovered. Oscar's house is on its way to breaking ground in the spring. With Tate's newfound gift in seeing the people of the dead people, given to him by his sister, continues to make connections with the people who have passed on. Despite falling deeply in love with Wren during their time together, Tate understands that the two of them would be unable to have any sort of relationship, and now that the B&B has been completely bulldozed after the fire, her body has been able to move on into the afterlife as she deserves to rest.

[readingforsanity]

The Silent Woman | Minka Kent | Published 2022

Newlywed Jade Westmore has finally found her forever in husband Wells, a charming, successful and recently divorced architect - only there's one caveat. Behind the gates of their elysian estate, hidden from street view in the caretaker's cottage...lives Wells' first wife, Sylvie.

Three years ago, the original Mrs. Westmore suffered an unfortunate accident - and hasn't uttered a sound since. Not a physician, psychologist or world-renowned specialist has been able to elicit so much as a word from the silent woman...until now.

On an ordinary Tuesday while Wells was away - despite instructions to never disturb the fragile woman - Jade visited her isolated predecessor bearing a peace offering: a bouquet of white lillies. Only she wasn't expected Sylvie to have something for her as well: a slip of torn notebook paper with a single word scrawled in shaky black ink.

That word? Run.

Autobiography writer Jade was chosen to write the biography on Viviette Westmore, a Hollywood starlet. But after meeting her grandson, Wells, the two quickly fell in love and marry. Wells Westmore, an architect, had been previously married to Sylvie. But three years ago, Sylvie was in a tragic accident that has left her uncommunicative.

Wells then decided to keep Sylvie in their pool house and pays for her private care while Jade begins living in the main house. Wells is adamant that he doesn't want Jade and Sylvie to communicate with each other, preferring to handle things on his own.

But while Wells is out of town for a work meeting, a frantic nurse begs Jade for help when she receives a call about a family emergency. Without another option until another nurse shows up, Jade goes into the pool house to sit ith Sylvie. Initially, Jade is hesitant to bring up her true identity, but this is brought up anyway when Sylvie notices the wedding bands on her ring finger. Right before the replacement nurse shows up, Sylvie writes something down on a piece of paper and Jade takes it. Once back inside of the main house, Jade reads the note, one simple word: run.

Disconcerted by this, Jade begins to question if Wells has been honest with her about the entire thing. But he had been adamant that Sylvie's incident was a tragic accident, where she had slipped and fallen into the pool, hitting her head in the process.

But, after Jade is introduced to her next door neighbor, Portia, the questions only get worse. Portia claims to have been good friends with Sylvie prior to the accident, surmising that the two of them shared secrets with each other. Wells never brought this up to Jade, though she understands his hesitancy to share as he doesn't like to talk about his relationship with Sylvie.

Portia also insinuates that Wells had been possessive and controlling, leading Sylvie to consider leaving Wells. With this new information in hand, Jade begins to wonder if there is more to the story than what Wells has told her.

Bringing more to question is the involvement of Wells birth mother, Mary Claire. Born to Viviette in her early 40s and Wells coming into the picture when Mary Claire was only 19 years old, she spent the majority of her life in and out of Wells' life, allowing her own mother to formally take custody and adopt Wells to raise as her own. Now older and with Wells an adult, the two of them are able to get closer. But she begins to put things inside of Jade's head making her question everything.

When Jade spends time alone with Sylvie at her own request, she asks easy yes or no questions in order to communicate with her. When she asks if someone hurt her and if she knows who it was, Sylvie says yes. Jade is able to surmise that it was Portia's adult son, Olly. When Portia informs her that while Olly is 21 years old, his mindset is that of a 12 or 13 year old child. With this informtion in mind, Jade knows that someone set Olly up to take the fall in the long run.

And that person is none other than Wells. With Mary Claire and Portia's help, Jade is able to get Sylvie out on her own under the pretense that she is taking her to a doctor's appointment. But when Wells finds out, he tracks them to the hospital where Sylvie's mother has joined them. Wells had initially told her that Sylvie's mother had died from cancer shortly after the accident when that hadn't been the truth at all, something she learned from Mary Claire only the day before.

They learn that Wells had been working with a doctor to continually overmedicate Sylvie in order to keep her from communicating the truth.

A year later, Sylvie has regained the ability to speak though she continues to work through therapy. Jade continually visits with her, even continuing to write the book about Viviette, but including herself, Sylvie and Mary Claire into the mix as well, as they were able to get away from the nightmare that was Wells Westmore.

[readingforsanity]

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter | Stephen Graham Jones | Published 2025

A diary, written in 2012 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What is unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of her peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

In the present day, Etsy Beaucarne comes across a journal written by her three times great-grandfather in 1912, 100 years ago. Found in the walls of construction, she is able to petition to get her hands on it. With her career in the dump, she plans to use this journal in order to secure a book deal and a place at her university with tenure.

Detailed in the journal, Arthur Beaucarne, a Lutheran pastor living in Miles City, Montana, relays how he came to know a Blackfoot Indian named Good Stab. During their conversations, which Good Stab says are confessions, he talks of how after a massacre in the year 1870, he became an undead individual, living and relying on the blood of any living creature in order to survive.

After encountering the Cat Man, the one who created him, Good Stab lived a solitary life, living on anything that he could get his hands on, whether it be animal or human. He was saddened to discover that his true identity as Pikuni lessened with each creature he ate, and the more he fed on these creatures, the more he would pick up their attributes.

Good Stab did this, trying to keep his animalistic ways at bay when he could, for several years, before once again encountering the Cat Man. When he was successful in finally defeating him, Good Stab continued to live.

We learn that he has chosen Arthur as the person to tell his confessions to because he had been involved in the massacre of his people all those years ago. And that, despite his chosen profession as a Holy man, had fathered a child out of wedlock with a woman, and that child has become one of his victims in the town limits.

Shocked by this, Arthur knows that the only ending to this is that Good Stab is going to either end his life or he will become someone just like him.

When Etsy decides that the project is going to fall through because of the nature of the document as well as the death of her father, she reencounters Good Stab, and with him, Arthur. While Good Stab is still in human form, Arthur has been forced to live out the remainder of these years as a Prairie Dog, a terrifying thing that Etsy cannot fathom.

Ultimately, in the end, she is able to release him back to the location of the massacre, where he can live the rest of his days the way that Good Stab was unable.

[readingforsanity]

The Wives of Hawthorne Lane | Stephanie DeCarolis | Publishing 2025

Hawthorne Lane is the perfect place to live. Its tree-lined street and stately homes are the envy of the town. Every Halloween the residents of Hawthorne Lane come together to host their famous Fall Fesival. But this year, someone won't survive the night.

As a murder investigation ensues, it quickly becomes clear there's more going on behind closed doors on Hawthorne Lane than meets the eye. And four women, each with secrets worth killing for, find themselves at the center of it all.

There's Georgina, the perfectionist and reigning Queen Bee, who pays a high price for her elevated status. There's Audrey, the bold and beautiful neighbor with the high-flying corporate career, but whose marriage is on the rocks. There's Libby, the working mother who is struggling to come to terms with her recent divorce while parenting her teenage son. And finally, Hannah - the newcomer with a mysterious past that's returning with a vengeance.

As the clock ticks down to Halloween, their lives will cross in the most unexpected ways. And soon only one question remains: Who will pay the ultimate price for the lies they all tried so hard to bury?

Hawthorne Lane is an affluent neighborhood, home to a variety of different characters.

There is Georgina Pembroke, the one women that the majority of the neighborhoods females are envious of. She comes across as put-together, always hosting neighborhood get togethers and barbecues, whether it is the annual FalL Festival hosted on the block, or just a get together to introduce the newest neighbors to the remainder of the close knit community. Married to lawyer Colin, and mother to teens Sebastian and Christina, she is the epitome of the perfect woman that many women strive themselves to be.

There is Libby. Recently separated from her husband, Bill, after nearly two decades of marriage, she finds herself struggling to move on. Bill gave her the hope that they might reconcile, claiming to need space and time away from their marriage for reflection. But, Libby later learns that Bill has found himself in a new relationship with a younger woman named Heather, and Libby begins to unravel. Dealing with this separation in addition to getting further and further away from her teenage son, Lucas, sends her down a spiraling path she isn't sure she'll be able to get out of.

There is Hannah, the newest transplant to the neighborhood. Recently married to her older than her husband, Mark, the two of them purchased their large home on Hawthorne Lane with the intention of filling it with children shortly after they moved in. But Hannah is keeping a deep, dark secret from Mark, and it is now coming back to haunt her, and she will do anything to keep that secret in the past where it belongs.

And finally, there is Audrey. A prominent magazine editor, married to a prominent author named Seth, you'd think they had the perfect life. One of the only couples on the block without children, they were okay with this decision, deciding that their relationship would be much better without adding children into the mix. But somthing shifts in Audrey at some point, and for the last six months, she has been engaging in an extramarital affair with another man. That other man is none other than Georgina Pembroke's husband, Colin. But after Colin becomes increasingly violent with her in her attempt to end their affair, she knows that something needs to be done.

In the months and weeks leading up to the events of Halloween night and the Fall Festival, each woman goes through something entirely different. Georgina struggles with Colin's increasingly violent nature while dealing with her own son's decision to follow in his father's footsteps. Hannah continues to worry about who from her past has found her and could leak her secret. Libby decides that since Bill is move on in his new relationship, she should too, ultimately meeting an unassuming man named Peter, while Audrey deals with the fallout from her decision to end her affair with Colin.

On Halloween night, it all comes to a head. Sebastian and Colin both attack Lucas, Libby's teen son, as Lucas and Christina have been seeing each other in secret. While it wasn't intentional, the two teens meeting in secret against their families wishes, Colin and Sebastian both have a reaction that causes a chain of events.

Audrey also confesses her affair to Seth, who claims that he will kill Colin and Bill and Seth end up protecting their loved ones against Colin, who balks since he is outnumbered.

Peter, whom had agreed to meet Libby at the festival, also learns that Bill is going to be a father again, something she will struggle with as the two of them had attempted to add to their family without success. But, she now has Peter in her life, but even that is going to change.

When Libby introduces Peter to Hannah, Hannah is shocked. Because the person who has found her is her ex-husband, Dean. Three years prior, Hannah had gone by the name of Maggie, and the two of them had gotten involved in something nefarious at the urging of Dean's best friend Mike. When things went south, Dean came up with an alternative plan in order to protect themselves, but in doing so, had caused a single vehicle accident. Hannah, believing Dean to have died in the accident, was finally able to get away from him and his own violent nature, having dealt with his abuse for years.

She ran to her childhood best friend, Sam, who helped her in getting away using a new identity. But Dean hadn't died in that accident, and has been looking for her ever since. Using the marriage announcement from the paper, he learns where she is now located, and reached out to Libby in order to get back at her.

Ultimately, Dean takes off after Hannah, who has run away in order to get away from him and mistakenly thinks that Christina, Georgina's daughter, was Hannah. Christina had been in the woods hoping to meet up with Lucas after her brother and dad had attacked him, and when she is attacked from behind, uses the Maglite flashlight she took from her garage to protect herself. Dean falls backward, hitting his head on a rock. Hannah witnessed the entire ordeal, and goes to take Christina home.

The four adult women decide to keep what happened a secret, instead deciding to pin it on Colin instead. With Dean's body found in the woods, Georgina and Audrey both paint a picture of Colin's violent nature, causing the police to arrest him when they find evidence that he had been involved in Dean's death.

At his trial, he was unable to keep his hatred for Georgina and Audrey a secret, further proving their point. Though he couldn't be charged with first degree murder, he is charged with first degree manslaughter, and will spend the next 10 years in jail. After the trial, the majority of the women decide to sell their homes and move on with their lives. Georgina and her kids head off to California, where they can start over. Libby puts her house up on the market, promotes her assistant manager to co-owner of her flower shop and puts her house on the market to move to Maryland. Audrey and Seth's marriage did not survive her deciding to tell the truth, but he is on the mend and she is doing everything she can to make a life for herself.

As for Hannah, she was kept largely out of the plan in order to keep her identity a secret. She comes clean to her husband about her past, and while he is initially hurt that she wouldn't share that with him before, understands why she did what she did. On Halloween the following year, the remain in their home on Hawthorne Lane, pregnant with their first child, whom she will name Sam, after the man who helped her and whom she had decided to reconnect with.

[readingforsanity]

Such Quiet Girls | Noelle W. Ihli | Published 2025

Sage and her sister won't make it home from school today. Neither will the other children on Bus 315. But that's only the beginning of the nightmare.

New bus driver Jessa blames herself for what happened. She couldn't protect the kids she was supposed to deliver to daycare, just like she couldn't protect her own daughter three years ago. But this time, everything will be different. It has to be.

Trapped in a shipping container buried twenty feet underground, Jessa and the children do their best to stay calm. The kidnappers insist that if everyone behaves, they'll be freed when the ransom is paid. But Sage isn't sure they'll last that long. Neither is Jessa. It's dark and cramped; and with every passing minute it's getting harder to breathe.

With time - and air - running thin, Jessa and the children must find a way to outsmart their captors, or face an unthinkable fate.

Is inspired by actual events.

After her release from prison, Jessa Landon is desperate to get custody of her daughter back. So much so, she has lied on her job application and is now driving a school bus full of children to an after school care recreation center, including Sheena's daughters Sage and Bonnie. Sheena is the city treasurer, a single mother and caregiver for her ailing father who is dealing with Alzheimer's.

But what should have been a normal day driving the kids to their destination, quickly turns into a nightmare. When Jessa comes upon a sign detailing a construction detour, she follows it despite knowing in her gut that something feels off. When the bus is detained by two masked individuals with guns, Jessa does exactly what they tell her to do.

These masked individuals, known as Ted and Andy, kidnap the children, putting the bus hidden away and throwing the kids' cell phones in a different location, they head off to place the kids inside of the underground bunker they had built using a storage container. It was meant to be for themselves, a secret hideaway to drink and smoke pot while at their job in a local quarry suddenly has turned into a nightmare for these children.

The nightmare continues for Sheena. After going to pick up her children from the rec center, she learns of the kidnapping, surprised to find that the FBI and police are already working together to locate the 10 missing children on the bus. When she returns home, she finds a pizza box left on her doorstep, which included the ransom note, detailing that she should go to 5 separate banks the following day, withdrawing $10,000 from each one and then eventually transferring $2 million in bitcoin to an account after leaving the cash at a nearby campground.

Despite her best thoughts, Sheena decides to handle this on her own. She is able to use her authority as the city treasurer in order to withdraw the big amounts, but is unable to withdraw the full $10,000 from each location, leaving her short nearly $5,000. When she goes to drop the money at the campground, she leaves a note with her father's watch, informing the kidnappers that this watch is worth $12,000 and they can keep it in order to make up the missing amount as well as the overage.

Her hopes in giving them the watch was so she can track them, a feature she used in order to keep an eye on her father. But the watch's GPS settings are low due to the battery, and against her better judgment, decides to contact the police.

Meanwhile, underground, Sage refuses to be a sitting duck. With back up from the other kids as well as Jessa, she is able to dig her way out of the storage container in hopes of saving them. When she comes face to face with Ted, whose given name is Edward and was the former bus driver who had been fired for misconduct just a few short weeks ago, he realizes the mistake he has made and allows her to get away, which infuriates Andy. He goes in pursuit of her, but has no luck in catching her.

Sage is able to locate help at a nearby business, which just happens to be the memory care center Sheena had dropped her father off at the night before. Andy doesn't continue to pursue her and goes in the wind, and the children and Jessa left behind in the collapsing storage container are rescued by the police and Ted is apprehended.

In the end, the children are saved, though harmed in their own ways. Sheena is able to reunite with her children, and Jessa is also reunited with her daughter, who wanted to visit with her mother after learning about what happened to her and the children on the bus.