Return to Sender
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
This layered and compelling cozy mystery is all about found family, first love, and one town’s tragedies, perfect for fans of Melina Marchetta, Kristin Dwyer, and Nina LaCour.
Brodie McKellon didn’t leave town in handcuffs; not exactly. But all the same, in only one night, she lost her best friends and her home. And that same night, the town of Warwick lost the Adder Stone, a supposedly magical ring of local legend.
The events, Brodie maintains, were not related.
Four years later, Brodie’s returned to Warwick to identify the real thief and get back everything she lost. She can clear her name, win back her friends Elliott and Levi, and save Gran’s house from the bank.
But as Brodie starts investigating, she gets pulled into a different mystery, of three friends and their “dead letters”—mail that’s been lost over the years. And soon she finds that there are times when the things you find aren’t the things you even knew you had lost. A house becomes a home. Some friends become family. And other friends, well, they might become something more. As long as Brodie can be brave enough to find herself.
Brodie came back for a stolen ring. She might just find a whole lot more.
Enemies to Lovers: Levi was once her closest confidant. Now he barely looks at her. To solve this case, they’ll have to work together… whether they like it or not.Small Town Secrets: Everyone in Warwick has a theory about the missing Adder Stone. But an even older mystery lies waiting in a stack of undelivered mail at the Dead Letter Office.Friends to Lovers: She lost her two best friends in one night. Four years later, she wants them back—but her feelings for one of them are now anything but friendly.A Cozy YA Mystery: Brodie McKellon’s reputation is "town felon." To save her grandmother’s house and clear her name, she’ll have to become the detective everyone thinks she isn’t.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After three miserable years attending boarding school, 17-year-old Brodie McKellon is back in her small town of Warwick, where she's known as the McKellon Felon for being a "wild child with a bad rep." She's thrilled to reunite with her beloved grandmother and childhood neighbor Elliot; she's less thrilled to see Levi, her infuriatingly handsome former friend and current enemy. Now that she's returned, she can focus on figuring out who stole the supposedly magical Adder Stone from the local museum and clear her name of the crime that led to her and Levi's falling out. She's also eager to investigate the identities of the three teenagers who lived in the town 20 years ago whose letters she acquired from her family's Mail Redistribution Center. As Brodie learns more about Warwick and the people who inhabit it—and as secrets past and present intersect—she must navigate conflicting feelings about Levi. A lack of geographic and cultural specificity regarding Warwick and the surrounding locale somewhat dampen the emotional impact brought about by Brodie's inquiry into its history, making for a meandering tale by Australian author Draper (Museum of Broken Things). Main characters read as white. Ages 13–up.
