March 1, 2021
When 17-year-old Abigail disappears from a party in the Colorado woods, best friend Emma feels guilty for leaving her alone at the event, convinced that Abigail wouldn't simply run away. Finally, the police find troublesome evidence corroborating that belief, and the town's dark secrets start spilling forth. A debut with a 100,000-copy first printing.
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June 21, 2021
Debut novelist Bailey takes a familiar setup—a teenage girl mysteriously disappears during a party in the woods—and turns it into a suspenseful whodunit told in vivid, sensory prose. After 17-year-old Abigail Blake goes missing, Bailey lets the reader wonder who’s to blame. There’s Rat Lă
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, a Romanian immigrant who lives in a nearby trailer park; Hunter Maddox, host of the party; Hunter’s shifty father, Jerry; and a host of other locals. Alternating “Then” and “Now” sections build on Abgaili’s best friend Emma Alvarez’s search for the truth as she finds clues such as a shell casing and a tube of lip balm, and the townspeople’s secrets are slowly revealed. Bailey successfully renders character archetypes (hypocritical pastor, abusive veteran father, beaten wife, outcast immigrant) in three-dimensional nuance, and though she handles the suspense well, the delivery of the ultimate reveal, which comes via flashback, feels a bit disappointing, as if the author failed to find a way for the characters to solve the mystery. Still, the simmering tension keeps the pages turning in this slow burn of a story.