Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"McCreight creates a world that pulls us in completely and genuinely, with characters that can enrage, amuse, and fill us with empathy. It's a thrilling novel."--GILLIAN FLYNN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
Motherhood hasn't been easy for Molly Anderson, and the years since the loss of her second child have been a particular struggle. But six months after moving from New York City to sophisticated Ridgedale, New Jersey, she's finally enjoying life again, as mother of a five-year-old daughter and fledgling arts reporter for the local paper. But this tenuous stability is threatened when the body of a newborn is found in the woods behind prestigious Ridgedale University and Molly is assigned the story. Over the objections of her increasingly concerned husband, Molly dives into reporting, determined to prove herself by uncovering the truth. What she finds is a decades-old trail of dark secrets that winds through every corner of the town.
Told from the perspectives of Molly; Barbara, wife of Ridgedale's police chief, whose faltering son is unraveling her picture-perfect life; and a sixteen-year old high school dropout, Sandy, who is dealing with her wayward mother, Where They Found Her reveals that the tragic truth about what happened to the baby lies at the unexpected intersection of these three very different women's lives. It is a taut and profoundly moving novel about mothers and daughters--the fierce bonds that unite them and the deceit that can drive them apart. But most of all it's about the heartbreakingly high price of history. The past can be artfully denied, but never truly buried.
"From the author of the New York Times bestseller and 2014 Edgar and Anthony nominee Reconstructing Amelia comes another harrowing, gripping novel that marries psychological suspense with an emotionally powerful story about a community struggling with the consequences of a devastating discovery. At the end of a long winter in well-to-do Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of an infant is discovered in the woods near the town's prestigious university campus. No one knows who the baby is, or how her body ended up out there. But there is no shortage of opinions. When freelance journalist, and recent Ridgedale transplant, Molly Anderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the story for the Ridgedale Reader, it's a risk, given the severe depression that followed the loss of her own baby. But the bigger threat comes when Molly unearths some of Ridgedale's darkest secrets, including a string of unreported sexual assaults going back twenty years. Meanwhile, Sandy, a high school dropout, searches for her volatile and now missing mother, and PTA president Barbara struggles to help her young son, who's suddenly having disturbing outbursts. Told from the perspectives of Molly, Barbara, and Sandy, Kimberly McCreight's taut and profoundly moving novel unwinds the tangled truth about the baby's death, revealing that these three women have far more in common than they realized. That the very worst crimes are committed against those we love. And that--sooner or later--the past catches up to all of us"-- Provided by publisher.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
When a body is found in Ridgedale-an otherwise quiet suburban New Jersey college town-cub reporter Molly Anderson is unexpectedly given the assignment for the Ridgedale Reader. Molly, who recently suffered a traumatic late-term miscarriage, has finally lifted herself out of a debilitating depression and sees her new job as a way to rebuild her life. But when she discovers that the victim in the river is a newborn girl, Molly is forced to confront the haunting pain of her own baby's death; in the process, she uncovers dirty secrets about a town that strives to maintain its idealized image. The story is told from the point of view of three Ridgedale women (high school dropout Sandy, PTA president Barbara, and Molly) and is supplemented with transcripts, journal entries, and newspaper clippings in a manner reminiscent of McCreight's successful debut novel, Reconstructing Amelia. VERDICT Some elements of this plot and narrative feel contrived and too coincidental, but overall this tightly spun sophomore effort will please fans of Amelia. McCreight has a keen grasp of the epistolary technique and is adept at providing readers the puzzle pieces they need to build a broader picture. A solid follow-up. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/14.]-Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Edgar-finalist McCreight (Reconstructing Amelia) smoothly juggles multiple voices in her strong second novel. Four of them belong to freelance journalist Molly Sanderson: Molly's own contemporary voice, her recorded psychiatric sessions, her therapy-era journal, and her published articles for the local paper in Ridgedale, N.J., a Princeton-like community where she lives with her professor husband, Justin, and their five-year-old daughter, Ella. Molly is assigned the story of a newborn discovered dead in a creek on university property-a dicey subject given Molly's loss of her own baby two years earlier and her subsequent depression. Other perspectives include that of Sandy, a bright high school dropout; Sandy's reckless mother, Jenna, who abruptly vanishes; and Barbara, the "perfect mom" of a kindergarten classmate of Ella's, Cole, who starts exhibiting troubling behavior. Molly's reporting uncovers a slew of dark secrets, some too close to home. While McCreight's plot contains some far-fetched coincidences, her deft writing makes for a thoroughly riveting tale. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff and Associates. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
School Library Journal Review
Another thriller for adults that teens will devour. As she did in Reconstructing Amelia (HarperCollins, 2013), McCreight explores how the mistakes made by parents when they themselves were teens are revealed to their children and the devastation they can wreak. Ridgedale looks like the perfect college town and reporter Molly certainly hopes it is the place where she and her husband can recover from the devastating stillbirth of their second child. But when Molly's first assignment in their new town is to cover the discovery of a dead newborn in the campus woods, she has to quickly figure out if her investigation will bring her closure or return her to the depths of grief from which she's just recovered. While the protagonist reports on the gruesome crime, teen Sandy is desperate to find her hard-partying mom before they're evicted. In their parallel searches, Molly and Sandy begin to uncover some very dark secrets in Ridgedale's past. McCreight plants seeds of doubt in all of the protagonists, from the police chief to a high-strung soccer mom. Although some of the plot and the twist ending are slightly predictable, readers will keep flipping through pages. VERDICT Young adult fans of Jodi Picoult or Elizabeth Berg will enjoy this mystery.-Meghan Cirrito, formerly of Brooklyn Public Library © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
A quaint college town's myriad secret betrayals are exposed when an infant's body is found on Ridgedale University's campus, and local reporter Molly Anderson connects the location to an incident that claimed another young life decades ago. That death was ruled accidental, but with only six unnatural deaths in Ridgedale in the past 20 years, how likely is it that two would be discovered in the same spot? Molly, a reporter for the Ridgedale Reader, covers the story at no small price; she's rebounding from the recent stillbirth of her daughter but digs into the investigation to prove that she hasn't lost herself. Sharply intelligent, tenacious Molly shares the narrative with tightly wound supermom Barbara and Sandy, a teenager desperately searching for her missing party-girl mother. McCreight's much-anticipated second novel (following Reconstructing Amelia, 2013) is a gripping and tender examination of misplaced trust. Pair with Keija Parssinen's The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (2015) for contrasting stories about the impact of an infant's death in small-town America.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2015 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
The discovery of an infant's body rocks a seemingly idyllic New Jersey town in McCreight's intense sophomore effort. Accustomed to writing lifestyle articles, reporter Molly Sandersona recent transplant to upscale Ridgedale with her English-professor husband and young daughternever expected her first hard-news story to involve a dead baby. She's still reeling from her own miscarriage, and when an unidentified newborn girl is found in the woods near the college campus, it hits close to home. Expanding on the alternating-perspectives technique she used in her first novel, Reconstructing Amelia (2013), McCreight slowly lays out the pieces of the grim puzzle, which include Molly's ever widening investigation; the fears of the town as expertly conveyed through comments left on Molly's online news stories; and a complex relationship between two teenage girls from different sides of the tracks. At 16, Sandy Mendelson is more mature than her hard-partying mother, Jenna, who thinks nothing of parading a series of men (and drugs) in front of her daughter. After dropping out of school to help earn money for rent, Sandy is trying to get her GED diploma with the help of tutor Hannah Carlson, a high school senior whose life couldn't be more different. The daughter of Ridgedale's police chiefwho's a reluctant source for Mollyand a demanding mother, Hannah is a tightly coiled spring. As rumors abound and Molly investigates the town'sand the college'ssqueaky clean image, the baby's identity and her parentage threaten to tear Ridgedale apart. Genuinely suspenseful and disturbing; McCreight delivers a provocative, timely novel that reminds us that sometimes the things that shine the brightest have the dirtiest underbellies. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
TextPublication details: New York, NY : Harper, [2015]Description: 326 pages ; cmISBN: