The Children's Secret A Novel

Nina Monroe

eBook - 2021

Nothing ever happens in a sleepy town like Middlebrook. Until the residents are shaken to their core, when one hot Saturday afternoon, at a back-to-school party, nine children sneak into a barn...and only eight come out unharmed. The press immediately starts asking questions. What type of parents let their children play unsupervised in a house with guns? What kind of child pulls the trigger on their friend? And most importantly: of the nine children who were present in that barn, which one actually pulled the trigger, and why are the others staying silent? Incredibly gripping and gorgeously written, this thought-provoking novel asks how much our children are capable of, and how far we will go to protect them.

Saved in:
Subjects
Published
[United States] : Crooked Lane Books 2021.
Language
English
Corporate Author
hoopla digital
Main Author
Nina Monroe (-)
Corporate Author
hoopla digital (-)
Online Access
Instantly available on hoopla.
Cover image
Physical Description
1 online resource
Format
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
ISBN
9781643858760
Access
AVAILABLE FOR USE ONLY BY IOWA CITY AND RESIDENTS OF THE CONTRACTING GOVERNMENTS OF JOHNSON COUNTY, UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, HILLS, AND LONE TREE (IA).
Contents unavailable.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The shooting of an 11-year-old child during a back-to-school party throws the community of Middlebrook, New Hampshire, into a flurry of vitriolic accusations and unlovely posturing. The irony is that Astrid Carver wasn't even expected at the party in the first place. Her mother, law professor Priscilla Carver, had not only declined the invitation from schoolmate Bryar Wright's parents, but urged her friends and neighbors to boycott the event as well because she couldn't forget the shooting of her rescue dog three years ago by Bryar's father, border patrol agent Ben Wright. But Astrid defied her mother, sneaked off to the Wrights' place, and ended up critically wounded by one of the guns Ben stored in his wife's riding stable. All the other children who were present tell Lt. Mesenberg that they're too confused and uncertain to say just how Astrid got shot, but that's because they've sworn each other to secrecy about what they all know perfectly well. In the absence of any hard evidence--even the gun and Astrid's cellphone have gone missing--the field is free for someone to adorn the new mosque architect Ayaan Sayed has designed with the announcement "TERRORISTS GO HOME," for the neighbors to turn on widowed hunter True Bowen, and especially for Priscilla Carver to mobilize every weapon she can seize against the Wrights. Monroe stokes the fires so effectively as racism, snobbery, and old grudges fly around decorous Middlebrook with the fury of the woes released from Pandora's box that the cautiously happy ending she eventually summons feels sadly unconvincing. Think your children couldn't possibly behave like this? Monroe will have you thinking again. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.