Before he finds her / Michael Kardos.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore town of Silver Bay knows the story: on a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a blowout block party, then murdered his beautiful wife and three-year-old daughter.

But everyone is wrong. The daughter got away. Now she is nearly eighteen and tired of living in secrecy. Under the name Melanie Denison, she has spent the last fifteen years in small-town West Virginia as part of the Witness Protection Program. She has never been allowed to travel, go to a school dance, or even have internet at home. Precautions must be taken at every turn, because Ramsey Miller was never caught and might still be looking for his daughter. Yet despite strict house rules, Melanie has entered into a relationship with a young teacher at the local high school and is now ten weeks pregnant. She doesn't want her child to live in hiding as she has had to. Defying her guardians and taking matters into her own hands, Melanie returns to Silver Bay in hopes of doing what the authorities have failed to do: find her father before he finds her. Weaving in Ramsey's story in the three days leading up to the brutal crime, Before He Finds Her is a stirring novel about love and faith and fear--and how the most important things can become terribly distorted when we cling to them too fiercely.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Melanie Denison grew up in West Virginia, hiding in the Witness Protection Program from her father, Ramsey Miller, who murdered her mother in 1991. Now almost 18, unmarried, and ten weeks pregnant, Melanie decides to ignore her guardians' warnings and attempts to find and confront her mother's killer. Most of the action takes place in Silver Bay, NJ, the site of the crime, with many flashbacks of the events leading up to her mother's murder. Some listeners may be put off by the cast of generally unlikable characters and some contrived plot twists. Others may find it hard to stop listening to Julia Whelan's excellent narration. There is an intriguing exploration into connections between belief in Jesus Christ and belief in astrology, particularly the unusual planetary alignment of 1991. Verdict This novel is not quite compelling, not very suspenseful, but still enough fun to be recommended for adult mystery collections.-Cliff Glaviano, formerly with Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Meg Miller, the teenage heroine of Kardos's thriller, has been hiding under the name Melanie Denison for the decade and a half since her father, Ramsey Miller, murdered her mother, tried to kill her, and disappeared. Weary of living in terror, she runs away from her overprotective guardians in the hope of finding and confronting her father and her fear. The story alternates between Meg's present-day search for information in Silver Bay, N.J., where the crime was committed, and the events in Ramsey Miller's life leading up to the night of the murder. This leaves reader Whelan the task of constantly shifting from the voice and sensibility of a bright young woman on a dangerous quest, to a gruff young man with a Jersey accent who is putting himself through lifestyle changes. Both characters are brought strikingly to life, and as Kardos's engrossing novel introduces a series of intriguing characters-including Meg's aging hippie stepparents, a smarmy TV network weatherman, and a shrewd, unemotional police detective-Whelan takes each in stride. A Mysterious hardcover. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

In the New Jersey beach community of Silver Bay in 1991, the Miller family hosted a block party; later that night, Ramsey Miller murdered his wife and disappeared, along with their three-year-old daughter Meg. Fifteen years later, the case is still open. Most people believe that Ramsey also murdered his daughter and then fled the country. But no one knows except for Melanie Denison, the now 18-year-old who was once Meg Miller, and her adoptive parents, Uncle Wayne and Aunt Kendra. For 15 years, they have lived in Fredonia, WV, mostly staying off the grid, hoping that Ramsey doesn't find them. But Melanie/Meg now has her own reasons for wanting to stop hiding and move out into the real world, and so she sets off for New Jersey to find some answers. Told in alternating sections between Melanie's search in 2006 and Ramsey's actions leading up to the murder in 1991, this is a compelling and layered story about truth and lies, and love and loss. Melanie is a typical teen, although more naïve than many, and her mistakes and blunders are as natural a part of her personality as her determination and resolve. VERDICT Teens who enjoy thrillers and mysteries that keep them guessing will gobble this one up.-Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County (CA) Library © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Melanie Denison has spent the last 15 years obediently staying under the radar, raised in the Witness Protection Program with her Uncle Wayne and Aunt Kendra. Her father, Ramsey Miller, is a fugitive who's wanted for murdering her mother, and Melanie hides in fear that he'll come back for her. But now she has real dreams of becoming a journalist and creating her own family, one that doesn't have to hide. Desperate to start living, Melanie moves to eliminate the threat by hunting Ramsey herself. But when her search leads to the events surrounding her mother's murder, Melanie's single-minded pursuit of Ramsey becomes complicated as she realizes that the story she's accepted as her own has dangerous holes. Kardos smoothly alternates Melanie's story with Ramsey's version of the months leading up to the murder, and short bursts of her mother's voice, layering a compelling story about sad truths, loss, and resilience into the suspenseful framework of Melanie's hunt. This story, at its best in the gray areas, should make fantastic fodder for book-group discussions.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2014 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

An engrossing tale of a young woman kept hidden from her mother's killer. Allie Miller is murdered, and her 3-year-old daughter, Meg, is raised by Uncle Wayne and his wife in a secret location under a federal witness protection program. The killerapparently Allie's truck driver husband, Ramseyremains on the loose. Who knows when he'll return to kill Meg as well? So Meg becomes Melanie Denison, lives in another state, is constantly shielded from the public, rarely allowed to be seen and unable to have a normal childhood. By 18, she chafes at the strict protection. Her aunt and uncle are paranoid about her safety, but she wants to know why Ramsey still has such a hold on her life. She's determined to find him before he finds her, so she returns to Silver Bay, where she had once lived and where her mother died. That Ramsey would both elude the police and lie in wait for 15 years to kill his daughter feels implausible, but Kardos' masterful storytelling persuades the reader to accept the premise. Readers may anticipate some of the plot twists, but the story is no less tense for that. Near the end, one character nicely states the theme: "We spend our lives trying to understand the hearts of those around us and the actions those hearts inspire, and we get it wrong, wrong, wrong." The characters show their humanity through Kardos' vivid prose: On the road for weeks at a time, Ramsey feels as though "he and the truck were a drop of the earth's blood moving along a wide vein to deliver vital nutrients." And when he thinks, about Allie, that "she was going to die tonight," he does so without malice because he thinks a superconjunction of the planets is about to destroy the world anyway. But when it doesn'twell, read the book. First-class fiction about fear, love and lies. Highly recommended. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.