Review by Booklist Review
Sawyer's debut is a gripping and emotional domestic suspense novel that explores the complex trials and tribulations of motherhood from three female perspectives. What sacrifices are they willing to make to protect their children? Two different time lines alternating between 1987 and 2011 have Diana, Mary, and Bee each uncovering long-buried secrets. New mom Bee's life is upended when her childhood crush contacts her with news from her estranged twin brother Gus. This compels her to return home to Texas to search for answers to a young girl's unsolved disappearance. What tore apart her family 20 years ago? Bee's mother, Mary, was a perfect homemaker but secretly felt trapped and lonely in an unhealthy marriage. Consumed by the desire to act, she escaped by performing in the community theater. Her chaotic and disorganized neighbor, Diana, threw herself into academics to escape dealing with her new divorce. When these women finally connect, horrific discoveries force them to do the unthinkable to protect their children. The taut prose and complex narrative structure illustrate the three women's loyalties, sacrifices, longings, and ambitions, illustrating how they are forced to make difficult choices and embrace their womanhood.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A new mother fixates on a girl's long-ago disappearance from her Austin, Tex., neighborhood in Sawyer's arresting debut. Bee Rowan; her troubled twin, Gus; and her girlhood crush Leo Nastasi were once close, but she hasn't spoken to either of them in years. In 2011, Leo tracks down Bee in Maine, where she lives with her husband and eight-week-old daughter, Attie, and lets her know Gus wants to talk. She returns with Attie to Austin, where, to Bee's surprise, Gus is staying at their mother Mary's house. There, she finds hidden in her childhood bedroom a letter to Leo from Deecie Jeffries, the girl who disappeared in 1987. The discovery prompts Bee and Leo to finally confront long-ago events that drove a wedge between them. In chapters set in 1987, a teenage Leo, though quiet and kind, sets fires and acts out at school, leading his mother to believe he might have had something to do with Deecie's disappearance. Meanwhile, Mary worries her abusive husband might be responsible after finding a Polaroid print in their garage that hints at child pornography. Sawyer constructs a spellbinding mystery as she toggles between timelines and the viewpoints of three very different mothers. This one leaves a mark. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (Oct.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT When new mother Bee's childhood crush and neighbor Leo contacts her to tell her that her estranged twin, Gus, wants to see her, Bee travels from Maine back to her Texas home. She's seeking reconciliation and answers for why Gus vanished from her life. Bee also ponders the unsolved 1987 disappearance of a local girl and finds what might be a clue at her own mother's home. Set in 2011, with short flashbacks to 1987, the narrative follows three women: Bee; Bee and Gus's mother; and Leo's mother. The leisurely paced writing is oblique, with the plot unfolding slowly from different directions, coming into focus in the latter part of the novel. The last chapter will satisfy readers with the answer to the mystery of the girl's disappearance, but Gus's disappearance and reappearance are never fully explored, and the choice to have a certain villainous character never appear in person might be unsatisfying to readers. VERDICT Although the men in this book are underdeveloped, debut author Sawyer writes well-fleshed-out, dimensional women characters, in a novel that focuses on parent-child relationships.--Sonia Reppe
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