First published 2024
Ella Fitchburg walks out of prison after six years, convicted of trying to kill her boyfriend Jude's father, a superior court judge. As a teenager in New York City, she had fallen deeply in love with Jude, but that romance ended when she was sentenced to twenty-five years. She gave birth in prison and surrendered the baby for adoption. Now free, Ella cannot move forward without her daughter. She travels to Ann Arbor, Michigan, armed only with an address and a desperate plan to reclaim her child. Living under false pretenses, she must hide her criminal past while navigating the complex reality of the family that raised her daughter. But Ella faces a deeper problem than deception. She cannot remember what actually happened the night of the attempted murder. Neither can Jude. The truth of that evening remains locked away, even as its consequences continue to shape both their lives. Ella discovers that finding her daughter means confronting not just the lies she tells others, but the gaps in her own memory.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, adoption, family-drama
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Ann Arbor, Michigan, New York City
Period: 21st-century
312 pages · Kindle Edition · Algonquin Books
Content warnings: child-abuse, mental-illness