by Nora Roberts
First published 2018
Three teenagers are watching a movie at DownEast Mall outside Portland, Maine when gunmen open fire. The attack lasts eight minutes before police stop the killers, but the survivors carry the trauma for years. One teenager pursues law enforcement as his calling. Another isolates herself, remembering how she hid in a bathroom clutching her phone, until she channels her pain into art. A boy who was flirting with a sunglass vendor that night must also rebuild his shattered sense of safety. As the survivors slowly heal and find ways to move forward, they discover the original attack had another conspirator. This person remains unsatisfied with the death toll from that evening. While the survivors work to create new lives and relationships, the hidden threat watches and plans. The conspiracy runs deeper than anyone realized, and the danger has never truly ended.
Genres: suspense, crime, contemporary, mystery-thriller
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Maine, DownEast Mall, Portland
Period: 21st-century
438 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: violence