What She Left Behind
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
In this suspenseful thriller, Sara and her mother are going to secretly escape her abusive father—when her mother mysteriously disappears.
Sara and her mom have a plan to finally escape Sara’s abusive father. But when her mom doesn’t show up as expected, Sara’s terrified. Her father says that she’s on a business trip, but Sara knows he’s lying. Her mom is missing—and her dad had something to do with it.
With each day that passes, Sara’s more on edge. Her friends know that something’s wrong, but she won’t endanger anyone else with her secret. And with her dad growing increasingly violent, Sara must figure out what happened to her mom before it’s too late…for them both.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sixteen-year-old Sara and her mother are plotting to skip town to escape from Sara's abusive father, a retired cop who was traumatized by an incident on the job. He has also become delusional since his son Matt's suicide, acting as if Matt is still alive. Sara waits at Dairy Dream as planned, but her mother never shows; although her father claims she's on a business trip, Sara fears that something is terribly wrong. Sara's budding romance with a boy from school intermittently distracts her from her father's increasingly erratic behavior (and provides the story with moments of lightness), but Sara is isolated in her rural Michigan town. She can't even turn to the police chief, her father's loyal friend, for help ("It's like I'm trapped inside some Stephen King novel instead of my own life"). With growing desperation, she feigns normalcy until she can assemble enough clues to find her mother. Through Sara's free-writing assignments and internal dialogue, Bilen reveals a chilling picture of domestic violence. Sharp prose and an increasingly tense plot make this debut a page-turner. Ages 14 up.
