First published 2014
Clare Taylor turns her key in the lock of her Madison, Wisconsin home on Halloween eve, expecting to resume her settled life as a suburban wife and mother. The wild week she spent in Chicago with her ex feels like a distant distraction now. But when she steps inside, everything has vanished. The furniture is gone. Her husband Danny and two daughters have disappeared without a trace or explanation. The house she believed was mortgage free faces foreclosure. Outside in the darkness, she discovers the mutilated remains of their family dog. By morning, one of Danny's childhood friends lies dead in her backyard. Clare realizes her ordinary domestic existence was built entirely on deception. The nightmare consuming her life began with her husband thirty five years earlier on Halloween night in 1976, and now it races toward a terrifying conclusion that will shatter everything she thought she knew about the man she married and the life they built together.
Genres: domestic-fiction, suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: deception, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Chicago, Madison, Wisconsin
Period: 1976, Halloween
290 pages · Kindle Edition · Severn House Publishers
Content warnings: domestic-violence, murder, violence