September 2, 2019
Narcissistic Gloria Janes, the matriarch of the dysfunctional family at the center of this gripping novel from Canadian author Lundrigan (The Substitute), is a master puppeteer, pulling the strings of her estranged husband, Telly; her seven-year-old daughter, Maisy; and her 13-year-old son, Rowan. Gloria blames Rowan for Telly’s departure, and one stormy night she locks the boy out of the house. Rowan runs into the woods and takes refuge with Carl, a homeless man, and his dog. Told from the viewpoint of the two children, the story fluctuates between Rowan’s adventures with Carl and the manhunt for Rowan. Meanwhile, Gloria calmly carries on, stalking Telly and his girlfriend, manipulating Maisy, and using Rowan’s disappearance to her own ends. She firmly believes that both Telly and Rowan will return and they will be one happy family. Then a witness reports seeing a boy fighting with a man in a boat; the man returned to shore alone. As the tension builds, a secret is revealed, and someone must make a difficult choice. Lundrigan’s skillful depiction of the suffocating family dynamics keeps the reader turning the pages to the end. Agent: Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists (Canada).
July 1, 2019
After their father moves out, Rowan and Maisy face the escalating wrath of their mother, Gloria. In public, Gloria plays up her brave struggle to hold the family together, but behind closed doors, she's obsessively plotting to draw their father, Telly, away from his new girlfriend and berating Rowan and Maisy into fearful submission. When Rowan is caught stealing, Gloria forces him to spend the night alone in the forest, cowering from the lurking wolves she spitefully describes. Carl, a homeless man hiding out from schizophrenia-conjured mind-control agents, finds Rowan and offers him safety at his nearby camp. Later, certain that Carl is the only person who cares about him, Rowan returns to the camp after Gloria forces him outside during a violent thunderstorm. As the town searches for Rowan, Gloria manipulates Telly's guilt, determined to take no prisoners in her war against his new life. Lundrigan's second thriller (after The Substitute, 2017) is a well-crafted dive into narcissistic manipulation and betrayal that, despite being set in the American suburbs, evokes the mood of Scandinavian noir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)