Kleine, Andrea

Performance artist Kleine (Calf) portrays a young woman's bumpy and sometimes uncomfortable journey toward resolution and self-reliance in this novel of discovery and healing. [See Prepub Alert, 1/22/18.]

Kleine, who won big attention in 2015 with her small-press debut, Calf, returns with the story of sisters Hope and Eden, abducted while waiting for their divorced father to pick them up for the weekend...

Kleine gets the details of growing up in the early 1980s exactly right; in fact, the Tammy sections of the book read very much like the Judy Blume books that are often referenced. Kleine fictionalizes just enough of Jeff's story to add suspense and presents a plausible psychological portrait of a killer. The author's personal connection to the second case (the murdered girl was a childhood friend) perhaps led to a bit of overreach, as her attempts to get inside the mother's head and connect the two stories feel somewhat forced. Nevertheless, this is a tense page-turner.