by Lori Roy
First published 2011
Arthur Scott has spent twenty years running from the Kansas town where his sister Eve died under mysterious circumstances. After the 1967 Detroit riots shake him to his core, he convinces his wife Celia to pack up their family and move back to Bent Road, the rural stretch where he grew up. Arthur and their eldest daughter adapt quickly to farm life, but Celia feels isolated by the harsh realities of rural existence. Their son Daniel hopes Kansas will toughen him up after Detroit failed to make him a man. Young Eve-ee, named for Arthur's dead sister and small for her age, believes the move will help her finally grow. The family struggles to find their footing in this unforgiving landscape where life and death play out with brutal clarity. When a local girl vanishes, the Scotts find themselves pulled into the same dark currents that claimed Eve years before. Arthur must finally confront the secrets he fled, while his family discovers that some roads lead you exactly where you're meant to be, even when that place holds more danger than what you left behind.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, contemporary, thriller, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, secrets, trauma
Setting: Bent Road, Detroit, Kansas
Period: 1967
355 pages · Hardcover · Dutton
Content warnings: death