The Return
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A group of friends reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance in this edgy and haunting debut.
Julie is missing, and no one believes she will ever return—except Elise. Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and feels it in her bones that her best friend is out there and that one day Julie will come back. She’s right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she’s been or what happened to her.
Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, the women decide to reunite at a remote inn. But the second Elise sees Julie, she knows something is wrong—she’s emaciated, with sallow skin and odd appetites. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back. But then who—or what—is she?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The reunion of a missing, presumed dead woman and her three best friends leads to hair-raising horror and pure entertainment in Harrison's compulsively readable debut. When Julie disappears, Elise is the only one among her friends who refuses to accept that she's most likely dead. Elise is proved right when Julie returns two years later, claiming to have no memory of the time since she vanished. Overjoyed, their other two best friends, Mae and Molly, organize a trip to upstate New York to reconnect. When the friends arrive at an isolated, extravagant hotel, they're disturbed to find Julie a changed woman. Previously a vehement vegetarian, she now craves meat, and her body seems to be deteriorating before their eyes, breaking teeth and losing eyelashes. Chalking up her erratic behavior to trauma, Elise and the others try to make the best of their weekend, but as past frictions flare up between the old friends, the eerily empty hotel grows more oppressive the longer they stay. Mounting dread builds to a blood-soaked climax as the truth of Julie's disappearance is revealed. The tension and nuance of Harrison's complicated female friendships add depth to an already delicious, chilling debut.
