Kill Creatures
Last summer, Luce, Edie, Jane and Nan took a boat out for one final swim in the river. It was a perfect summer night. Only Nan came back. Her story has never changed: the other girls went on ahead, and it was as though they vanished into thin air.
A year later, Saltcedar gathers at the river to hold a memorial for the three girls who never came home. Nan has even recreated the outfit she wore that night. Then Luce climbs out of the water — alive — and no one is more surprised than Nan.
Because Nan killed her. Right before she killed Edie and Jane.
Rory Power writes from inside the head of a narrator who is both the mourner and the murderer, and the tension comes from watching her manage a town's grief while the one person who can unmake her story walks back into it. Atmospheric and fast-moving, Kill Creatures is a book about girlhood friendship soured into jealousy, about violence and revenge, and about how long a lie can hold once the evidence starts breathing again.
The only girl who came back from the river. She has told the same story for a year: she does not know what happened. She killed them.
One of the three girls who vanished. She climbs out of the river alive at the memorial, a year to the day.
One of the four friends who took the boat out that summer night and did not return.
One of the four friends who took the boat out that summer night and did not return.