This is a shorter read but it packs quite a punch. Admittedly, McHugh does Arkansas tourism no favours with her dark tale set in the backwoods of the state, but this is a tense and compelling story that thriller readers won't want to miss. It is a slow-building story, so I advise readers to be patient because by the one-quarter mark readers won't want to put this book down. This is a dark and twisty ride filled with several potential culprits, a couple of nail-biting scenes and a satisfying ending. I could say I predicted the culprit, but my mind changed several times throughout the book, so I won't call my deduction exactly prophetic. There is a slight romance which was I thought was unnecessary, but it doesn't impede with the book's tension.
Told in alternating chapters, McHugh brings her readers into Sarah's tragic and disturbing past (as Sarabeth) - her abduction and family life - as well as the present day as she continues to struggle with her demons. I appreciated that the author doesn't shy away from these intense topics (cult-like religions, PTSD, female oppression ...) and in doing so, provides her readers with great, evocative discussion points.
Gritty, compelling, and delightfully dark, McHugh excels at creating her dark rural backdrop and through this multi-layered thriller, provides readers with complex characters, a handful of potential culprits to keep readers guessing and a bevy of twists that will have readers devouring this book.
Look for it in stores June 22, 2021 from Penguin Random House.
Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Random House Publishing for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
My Rating: 4.5 stars
Author: Laura McHugh
Genre: Suspense
Type and Source: eBook from publisher
Publisher: Random House
First Published: June 22, 2021
Opening Lines: The blacktop road stretched empty in either direction,
the sky hazy and the air heavy as a sodden sponge.
Book Description from GoodReads: Abducted as a teenager, a woman must now confront her past and untangle the truth of what really happened to her in this dark thriller from the author of The Wolf Wants In.
Seventeen-year-old Sarabeth has become increasingly rebellious since her parents found God and moved their family to a remote Arkansas farmstead where she's forced to wear long dresses, follow strict rules, and grow her hair down to her waist. She's all but given up on escaping the farm when a masked man appears one stifling summer morning and snatches her out of the cornfield.
A week after her abduction, she's found alongside a highway in a bloodstained dress--alive--but her family treats her like she's tainted, and there's little hope of finding her captor, who kept Sarabeth blindfolded in the dark the entire time, never uttering a word. One good thing arises from the horrific ordeal: a chance to leave the Ozarks and start a new life.
Five years later, Sarabeth is struggling to keep her past buried when investigator Nick Farrow calls. Convinced that her case is connected to the strikingly similar disappearance of another young girl, Farrow wants Sarabeth's help, and he'll do whatever it takes to get it, even if that means dragging her back to the last place she wants to go--the hills and hollers of home, to face her estranged family and all her darkest fears.
In this riveting new novel from Laura McHugh, blood ties and buried secrets draw a young woman back into the nightmare of her past to save a missing girl, unaware of what awaits her in the darkness.
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