First published 2010
Jody Linder watches from her bedroom window as her three uncles arrive at her childhood home in their best clothes. The high school English teacher knows something terrible has happened. The men bring devastating news: Billy Crosby, convicted of killing Jody's father twenty-six years ago, will be released from prison and return to Rose, Kansas. Jody was just a baby when her father was shot dead and her mother vanished on that violent night. Now Billy's son Collin, a lawyer determined to prove his father's innocence, has won him a new trial. Jody lives only doors away from the Crosby family. She knows she must eventually confront the man she believes destroyed everything. What surprises her are the intense encounters with Collin himself. The two have spent years avoiding each other in their small town. Jody discovers their mutual antagonism masks a profound shared grief that only they can understand. As old wounds reopen, shocking truths emerge about that deadly night. Jody must decide whether to uncover the dangerous reality behind her family's tragedy, even if it means risking the possibility of love.
Genres: suspense, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Rose, Kansas
Period: 20th-century
320 pages · Hardcover · Ballantine Books
Content warnings: murder