by Lo Patrick
First published 2026
Meg Gregory swore she would never come back to Tuskin, Georgia. The small town sits surrounded by empty fields, holding memories she spent years trying to escape. After her divorce, Meg finally stopped running and settled down. She watches her daughter and granddaughter walk the same dirt roads she once knew, determined to keep her past buried. Then the police arrest Lucy, Meg's quiet granddaughter, for killing her boyfriend. Meg knows Lucy could never commit murder. She understands how violence destroys a young girl because she witnessed it before, during another sweltering Georgia summer years ago. As Meg fights to prove Lucy's innocence, her carefully hidden memories begin surfacing. She recalls a different boy who died, a different summer when everything went wrong. The Georgia soil holds secrets that refuse to stay buried. Meg finds herself questioning what really happened all those years ago and whether she can trust her own recollections. The line between past and present blurs as two cases of murder collide in the place that shaped them both.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Georgia, Tuskin
Period: Present Day
400 pages · Paperback · Sourcebooks Landmark
Content warnings: violence