by Lisa Jackson
First published 2014
Sarah McAdams drives up to the crumbling Victorian mansion on the Columbia River where she grew up, bringing her daughters Jade and Gracie to start over. The old house triggers memories she'd rather forget: her cold mother, her half-sister who disappeared, and a night when she was found delirious on the widow's walk. The mansion has carried whispers of ghosts since its original owner died in a fall nearly a century ago. Sarah once felt something lurking in those rooms, and now Gracie sees a woman in white on the stairs. While Sarah manages renovations and faces a man from her past, teenage girls begin vanishing from town. Fear grips her as she realizes her daughters could be next. The house seems to press closer around her, and somewhere in her buried memories lies the answer to a deadly threat. Sarah must face what she's tried to forget to protect her family and stop history from repeating itself.
Genres: suspense, mystery, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: secrets-from-the-past, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Columbia River, Victorian Mansion
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
432 pages · Hardcover · Kensington
Content warnings: mental-illness