Sleeping Giants
A Novel
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4.4 • 24 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Rene Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them.”—Washington Post
From the bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Enchanted, a compelling and poignant story of sibling bonds, monsters masquerading as caretakers, terrifying secrets, and the power of love to right even the most egregious wrongs.
Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death.
For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens, or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother, and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman, Amanda has always felt distanced from the world around her. Her brain works differently from others, leaving her feeling set apart. Her one true companion is the orphaned polar bear she cares for working at the zoo. By getting to know her birth family, she hopes to understand more about herself.
Retired police officer Larry Palmer is a widower with nothing but time and in need of a purpose. He offers to help Amanda find answers. The search leads to shocking and heartbreaking discoveries. Dennis Owen had been a forgotten foster child abandoned to a home for disturbed boys off the coast. As Amanda and Larry dig deeper into the past, the two stumble upon decades of cruelty and hidden crimes—including a barbaric treatment still used today.
Told in Rene Denfeld’s inimitable style, Sleeping Giants is an enthralling and heartbreaking novel that burrows deep in the heart and will leave no reader untouched.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The mysterious drowning of nine-year-old Dennis Owens haunts the remote Oregon coastal community of Eagle Cove two decades later in Denfeld's enthralling follow-up to The Butterfly Girl. After Amanda Dufresne seeks out information about her birth parents, the lonely young zookeeper learns she had a brother, Dennis, who was taken from their alcoholic mother and put into Brightwood, a residential treatment center for boys with behavioral issues, when he was four years old. Five years later, he drowned in the nearby Pacific Ocean, possibly after escaping to the beach from Brightwood. Shocked, Amanda visits a roadside memorial overlooking the spot where Dennis was last seen 20 years earlier and meets widower Larry Palmer, a retired police officer looking for a purpose. Together, Amanda and Larry dig into Brightwood's troubled history, learning along the way that most local authorities and community members would prefer tales of the treatment center and its multiple missing boys to stay forgotten. Eventually, Amanda and Larry learn that a regime change at Brightwood just before Dennis was admitted led to the appointment of new director Martha King, who believed her cruel treatments benefitted the children even as she dealt them irreparable harm. Though the subject matter is often wrenching, Denfeld wrings considerable sweetness from the relationship between Amanda and Larry, and never allows the narrative to wallow in Dickensian misery. The result is a heartfelt mystery that will keep readers turning pages late into the night.
