Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price took her toddler daughter on an ordinary trip to a shopping mall in Gorham, New Hampshire, and never came back. Her car was found in the parking lot with the child still strapped into the back seat and no sign of Rachel anywhere. She was presumed dead; her husband, Charlie, was tried for her murder and acquitted; and their daughter, Bel, grew up as the girl whose mother vanished, in a small town that has never stopped talking about it.
Now eighteen, prickly and fiercely private, Bel wants nothing to do with the true-crime documentary her family has agreed to take part in. Then, in the middle of filming, the impossible happens: Rachel Price walks back into their lives, alive, with a harrowing story of where she has been. It is the ending everyone has been waiting for — and Bel, the one person unwilling to simply accept the miracle, is certain it is a lie. With the cameras still rolling, she begins pulling at the threads of her mother's account, and what she uncovers about her own family goes far beyond a cold case.
A twisty standalone thriller from Holly Jackson, author of the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, about family secrets and the stories we are desperate to believe.