The floating girls A novel

Both comic and heartrending, Patrick's superb debut sets a bildungsroman and murder mystery in the wetlands of coastal Georgia. Brash and lonely Kay Whitaker, 12, is frustrated by her unemployed father, Clay; her emotionally absent mother, Sue-Bess; and her remote older sister, Sarah-Anne, whose favorite activity Kay describes as "standin' in the yard like a twig in mud." While exploring the wetlands beyond their isolated home, Kay meets Andy Webber, a handsome boy her age who lives with his crabber father, Nile. Clay orders her to avoid the Webbers but won't explain why. Later, Kay discovers Nile was suspected in the drowning death of his wife a decade earlier. As Kay defies her father by jockeying for Andy's attention, unidentified authorities her parents refer to only as "people from the state" routinely visit the Whitaker home. (Her parents also hide Sarah-Anne during the visits.) Then Sarah-Anne disappears, and secrets begin to surface. The crackling energy of Kay's narration--a winning mixture of insight and naiveté, humor and pathos, vulnerability and strength--provides a welcome counterbalance to the oppressive setting and the pain the characters try to suppress. It's a masterly achievement. Agent: Alyssa Jennette, Stonesong. (July)

DEBUT Part murder mystery, part coming-of-age drama of a very vulnerable girl, the debut novel by ex-lawyer Patrick is both bitingly funny and painfully depressing. Twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker, from the marshlands of Bledsoe, GA, has a lot to say. It could be that she's compensating for the silence of the women in her family: her aloof mother, a peculiar sister, and another sister who died at birth and was buried in the yard. Often at odds with her father and two brothers, Kay is in many ways raising herself through defiance and self-reliance as she lives in extreme poverty and abject loneliness. Then Kay meets Andy Webber and his father, just back from California where they moved after the death of Andy's mother. Kay's father doesn't want her befriending the Webbers but won't say why. As she spends more time with Andy, Kay wonders how much isn't being said between the families. When her sister disappears, Kay is determined to uncover both families' secrets. VERDICT This is classic Southern girlhood fiction with a twist. Readers who enjoyed Ashleigh Bell Pederson's recent debut, The Crocodile Bride, will fall in love with Kay.--Shannon Marie Robinson