First published 2012
Mosey Slocumb finds a small grave buried in her family's backyard. The fifteen-year-old girl refuses to let the mystery rest. She pushes for answers about who lies beneath the dirt and why no one will talk about it. Her mother Liza suffered a stroke and can barely speak, but Mosey sees fear in her eyes whenever the grave comes up. Liza made choices as a teenager that still torment her decades later. Mosey's grandmother Jenny holds the family together with fierce maternal instinct. She raised Liza and now helps raise Mosey, but she guards secrets that could destroy them all. Three generations of Slocumb women share one house and a tangle of hidden truths. The grave forces them to confront what they've buried in more ways than one. Jenny will fight to protect her family's future, even as their past claws its way to the surface.
Genres: fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: family-drama, secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Slocumb House
Period: Present Day
322 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing
Content warnings: mental-illness