First published 2017
Billie Flanagan disappears during a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness. Searchers find only her hiking boot. Her husband Jonathan turns to alcohol while their teenage daughter Olive withdraws from everyone around her. Twelve months pass with no answers about what happened to the Berkeley mother. Then Olive begins experiencing vivid dreams where her mother appears alive. Jonathan dismisses these episodes as grief responses until he discovers hidden aspects of Billie's history. These revelations force him to question the woman he married and the life they built together. Father and daughter join forces to uncover what really happened. Their investigation reveals family secrets that challenge everything they believed about Billie. The search becomes more than finding a missing person. It becomes a reckoning with the versions of people we create in our minds versus who they actually are.
Genres: contemporary, psychological-thriller, mystery-thriller, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: missing-person, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Berkeley, Desolation Wilderness
Period: 12 months
358 pages · Hardcover · Spiegel & Grau
Content warnings: mental-illness