First published 2002
Tory Travers flies to Florida to visit her father, who lies in a coma. She brings David Alvarez, an El Paso detective who serves as both friend and occasional lover. Tory dreads facing her past as a senator's daughter, but a new crisis interrupts her homecoming. A young woman they met on the plane dies in what appears to be vehicular manslaughter. This woman had spoken about Rosewood, the Florida town destroyed in 1923, and mentioned Tory's senator father's research into those events. When a second body appears, someone Tory knows well, Alvarez begins investigating the connection between these deaths and the long-ago destruction of Rosewood. The town had possessed its own school, baseball field, Masonic Hall, train station, and three churches on New Year's Day 1923. Hate and intolerance burned it all down within a week. Now Alvarez must uncover the truth about both past and present before Tory becomes either a suspect or the next victim.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: El Paso, Florida, Rosewood
Period: 1923, Contemporary
256 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Worldwide Library
Content warnings: death, violence