REVIEW - LAWLESS WORLD - EMP AFTERMATH BY GRACE HAMILTON

  

Title: Lawless World
Series: EMP Aftermath
Author: Grace Hamilton
Release Date:12th July 2023

BLURB from Goodreads
The final battle for survival has begun… Reunited with his wife and daughter, Bear knows his family will never be truly safe until the Militia has been eliminated. Determined to end the threat once and for all, they agree to help the Freemen with one final push against this dangerous enemy. Meanwhile, Laurel struggles to combat a new sickness sweeping through the Freemen ranks before they lose anyone else. Seeking vital medical supplies, they travel to Laurel’s former sanctuary, South Minneha Hospital. But a lot has changed since they left to go find Mae. The hospital is in ruins and the remaining residents are struggling to survive in the wreckage. The Militia have one final trick up their sleeves — weapons of war, that survived the EMP — and General James Bruce plans to rain fire upon his enemies. Bear, Laurel and the others have no choice. They must fight to survive. But against such overwhelming firepower, is all hope lost? 

Goodreads Link

REVIEW
I love the cover which certainly fits with the test of the series so far. It definitely shouts the book genre out loud and clear and I would be picking it up from a bookstore shelf to learn more too.

I was approaching reading this book with mixed feelings, on one hand I was seriously looking forward to reading this book but on the other hand I didn't feel ready for the book to end. Lawless World picks up right where Collapsed World ended and gets right back into the plot and action!

When a valued member of the freemen dies of anaphylaxis due to a tick bite & then eating rabbit/meat and others are suffering too it becomes obvious that the 'Freemen' group need medical supplies.....Laura & Bear suggest South Minneha Hospital as their next stop. They obtain a much needed rest, medical treatment and perhaps some medical supplies to take with them on their journey. Laura is also looking forward to catching up with her old friends that she left behind when she left the hospital with Bear when they went in search of their daughter Mae. Unfortunately they don't get the welcome they thought they would. Things at South Minneha have changed, drastically, for the worse. Old friends have moved on, either dying due to pneumonia or leaving to try and find a safer settlement elsewhere. The South Minneha hospital building is in serious disrepair, in fact most areas are dangerous to be in with rooms collapsing. Then those left behind have also been attacked numerous times, it seems there are many people in the now hostile world who want to take what little they have gathered. To say people are disgruntled is an understatement, moral is at an all time low and there seems to be some hard feelings towards Laura & Bear for leaving or as some have come to see it abandoned by. It soon becomes clear certain people think things would have been different if Laurel & Bear had been there and as they are 'only visiting' they are now being treat as 'outsiders'. Laurel coerces Art, the leader of the freemen into staying 'a few days' to help 'her people' at South Minneha just as she helped 'his people' when she wanted to be elsewhere too. Also she reasons that Sharon & kids desperately need the time to rest.
Gideon chose to part way with Mae and her family going to another branch of the militia. When it becomes apparent that this branch of the militia and its leader Bruce is even worse than Cornell, he decides he wants to leave but along with fellow army man, Fairfax they decide they have to be careful as they don't think they will be allowed to just walk away. When Gideon finds out Bruce's mad plan for domination of the area and all in it and that it involves him attacking the South Minneha hospital he know he has to leave and get to Mae and her family to warn them.
Whilst trying to work out how to help those at South Minneha who are determined to stay there, Trent and Bear become suspicious of three strangers that are fairly new to the hospital. It turns out Trent & Bears instinct to keep an eye on the m is the right thing to do as the strangers do have an ulterior motive. Its during a fight between Bear & Mae and the strangers that Gideon comes to their aid. Once the after fight talk has ended and the welcomes, Gideon reveals the news about Bruce and his militia.
Discussions take place and its decided everyone will leave South Minneha together and travel to find a safer area. Those who are able and want to will also try to stop Bruce and his big plan to be in charge of everyone and everything.
Plans and back up plans are made, then the fight to stop Bruce transporting his men & arms on a train are put into action.
Favourite characters receive life threatening injuries during the battle. New allies are made with some of Bruce's army but theres one last stand to be made. With only one answer, one man puts himself forward to sacrifice himself for the greater good. With no time to come up with an alternative the suicide mission goes ahead.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were that I really enjoyed it! I can't believe the series is over! This whole series has been full of Edge of your seat moments, heart in your mouth, tear jerking moments and I highly recommend reading it. It has great characters you easily become firmly attached to immediately, others you learn to accept/like along the way and of course theres those characters you love to hate too!

Summing up, part of me would have loved a slightly different ending but as it ends theres hope for the future and a few of the things to happen that I had hoped would in this book. It's a realistic ending, I mean real life isn't always the absolutely perfect happy ever after! The book ends in such a way the author allows your imagination to fill out what you thing may happen in the near and far future. 

 

REVIEW - JEWS IN THE GARDEN BY JUDY RAKOWSKY

 

Title: Jews In The Garden
Author: Judy Rakowksy
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release Date: 11th July 2023

BLURB
Villages of Poland hide the lost secrets of World War II

1944: Heavy footfalls thud on the road on a rainy May night. A band of gunmen scour a hilltop farm, acting on rumors that it harbors a Jewish family. For 18 months, the Rozeneks have been hiding safely, but their luck is about to run out. Only one from the family of six will live to see the sunrise. Sixteen-year-old Hena Rozenek shelters in the woods until morning... and then she runs.

Forty years later: Holocaust survivor Sam Rakowski Ron has lived in the United States for decades, never thinking he could return to the Polish village he fled as a teenager. But now he's ready to talk about what he heard, what he saw, and what he knows about two separate families of cousins who were his neighbors, and presumably were killed during the war. The story Poland presents to the world is that Poles saved more Jews than citizens of any other nation, that any murders in Poland were committed by Nazis and Nazis alone. But Sam, while defending his countrymen, suspects a painful truth. The stories he shares with his younger cousin, Judy, an investigative journalist, send them off on a decades-long journey unlike any other to find out what happened to the Rozenek family and ultimately reveal the secrets the Polish government is still desperate to keep.

Jews in the Garden is a globe-trotting detective story that turns investigative eyes and ears toward the hidden events in Poland during the Holocaust. Judy and Sam, the unlikeliest of sleuthing duos, knock on doors, petition court documents, seek clandestine meetings, and ultimately discover what really happened to the "Jews in the garden next door."

Goodreads Link

REVIEW
The book cover features a treasured, rare, photograph that has survived the war of a once whole family, young and old living together. The cover also features a landscape underneath the photograph which becomes all the more poignant when you read the book.

Judy is a journalist and decides to write about her family history, she embarks on a journey and writing task that takes years and is filled with loss and horror but also great bravery, and survival against the odds. Judy discovers those that defied those around them that disagreed and hid her ancestors from the Nazis that still live with the stigma and sometimes feel the repercussions in the present day.

The historical part of the Memoir concentrates mainly on Hena & her family. During the war Hena & her family were hidden by a farmer, the allies were coming closer some would say they became a little more complacent, or a little braver and came out from their cramped hiding place in a barn to get some fresh air and see the sky. Unfortunately someone revealed were they were, reported them for being Jews. They are found and shot, all except Hena who sees what happens from behind a nearby tree. Hena's family, Sam's family were murdered by Poles, 'partisans' who sympathised & agreed with the Nazis getting rid of the Jews in Poland!

Judy travels back and forth many times both with Sam, (her older cousin), and sometimes alone gathering information, searching records when she is allowed to access them, if/when these documents still exist.
It's during a visit back to his home village that Sam and Judy discover that Hena's family were buried beneath the cherry tree, by the farmer who barely escaped with his own life. The tree itself reveals the place of burial by producing cherries that never ripen, they just turn black & rot. Sam and Judy are told by the descendents of the farmer that this is sign the villagers cannot ignore as they ignored the gunshots and what had happened that night. Sam and Judy visit and say a prayer.
Sam visits Poland again later and obtains permission and has a piece of bone belonging his family members that were murdered and buried, exhumed so he can take it back to the family burial plot in America.
At one point Sam visits a monument that has been 'forgotten' and vandalised, so he scratches his name on it, defiantly saying he was here, that he survived!
Theres another story told of the grandmother of the family too old and ill to flee with her fitter family members, she is left at home to face the Jewish 'round up'. Defiant to the last she ignores the call to gather at the square and has to be dragged there literally kicking and fighting to the very last moment of her life when she is shot along with the other Jewish people rounded up from the village.

Judy notices that when Sam visits what he still considers his hometown, Sam has a sort of spark of energy, an arrogant defiance when in Poland, He is back! They missed one! He survived! He escaped! He made it and is here to tell what happened! However during the many visits to Poland and the book Sam is getting older, at times it all seems too much for him, too upsetting. At times he becomes irritated translating for Judy as she doesn't speak the language fluently. Sometimes he shuts Judy out of his meetings and excursions, other times he welcomes her. Judy herself become frustrated when Sam wishes to rely on locals who say they have information and leads about Hena only to find that they lead to nothing. People are still reluctant to speak and reveal the truth about what happened. They prefer to distract with thing they find less uncomfortable to deal with. An example of this is when someone takes Sam to visit someone who has some furniture that was his families. It's quite strange, they even warn Sam he must not try to steal it!!

I was both devastated & disappointed for Sam, and Judy that they didn't really obtain the conclusion they wished for with their search for Hena. I was stunned, shocked and horrified in equal measure that they discovered what happened to the Rozeneks was so common place and that in today's society it is still being 'swept under the carpet' by so many. Why not openly admit these atrocities occurred then perhaps information could flow more freely for those still alive and their descendants who want to know more their deceased families? Why not lift all restrictions on paperwork to enable families to be reunited before it truly is too late? Maybe this book will bring out someone who knows/knew Hena or even Hena herself, or her descendants which would be truly amazing! For them to be reunited with Sam, and his descendants.

This book is not a light hearted, nor is it a 'happy ever after' read, it is quite facts & figures heavy in places. It contains details of the murder of innocent people of all ages. Though this is just one families true story there are so many branches of it to be told. The stark thing is that this is just one families story, how many more similar stories are there out there. It makes you think of the families with no one left alive to tell their stories, it really is thought provoking, and heart breaking too. There is so much information within this book about the people at the time of the war and the years following it, I feel like I could talk forever about it, my review just touches on certain parts of the book, there is so much contained in this biography/memoir. There were many times I felt like reaching out and hugging both Sam, Judy and the descendants of those that hid Jews from the Nazis and partisans. It's so difficult to fathom why did the farmers neighbours feel the need to give the Jewish family away so close to the end of the war? Why did the partisans that were fighting the Nazis could/would murder a Jewish family?

Having said all that I am glad I read the book, it tells a devastating true story from a horrible point in real history that should never, ever be forgotten. 

 

 

BLOG TOUR - THE HOUSE KEEPERS BY ALEX HAY

  

Title: The House Keepers
Author: Alex Hay
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Release Date: 4th July 2023

BLURB supplied by Harlequin Trade Publishing
The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs launch a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class

Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows.

When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs. King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance.

Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it…

After all, one should never underestimate the women downstairs. 

PURCHASE LINKS
BookShop.org
Harlequin
Barnes & Noble
Books A Million
Amazon

ABOUT THE  AUTHOR

ALEX HAY grew up in the United Kingdom in Cambridge and Cardiff, and has been writing as long as he can remember. He studied history at the University of York, and wrote his dissertation on female power at royal courts, combing the archives for every scrap of drama and skulduggery he could find. He has worked in magazine publishing and the charity sector and lives with his husband in London. The Housekeepers is his debut novel and won the Caledonia Novel Award.

AUTHOR LINKS
Author Website
Twitter
Instagram
Goodreads

 

EXCERPT 

Friday June 2, 1905Park Lane, London

Mrs. King laid out all the knives on the kitchen table. She didn’t do it to frighten Mr. Shepherd, although she knew he would be frightened, but just to make the point. She kept good knives. She took excellent care of them. This was her kitchen.

They had scrubbed the room to within an inch of its life, as if to prevent contamination. The tabletop was still damp. She could feel the house straining, a mountain of marble and iron and glass, pipes shuddering overhead.

She reckoned she had twenty minutes until they threw her out. Madam was awake and on the prowl, up in the vast ivory stillness of the bedroom floor, and they were already late with breakfast. It was important that Mrs. King didn’t waste time. Or endanger anyone else. She didn’t care what they did to her—she was past caring about that—but troubles had a way of multiply­ing, sending out tendrils, catching other people. She moved fast, going from drawer to drawer, checking, rummaging. She was looking for a wrinkle in things, a missing piece, something out of place. But everything was in perfect order.

Too perfect, she thought, skin prickling.

A shadow fell across the wall.

“I’ll need your keys, please, Mrs. King.”

She could smell Mr. Shepherd standing behind her. It was the odor that came off his skin, the fried-up scent of grease and gentleman’s musk.

Breathe, she told herself. She turned to face him.

He made an excellent butler. But he’d have done even better as a priest. He had that air about him, so tremendously pious. He stared at her, feasting his eyes on her, loving every minute of this.

“Good morning, Mr. Shepherd,” she said, voice smooth, same as every morning.

Mrs. King’s rule was: choose your first move wisely, and you could steer things any way you liked. Choose it badly, and you’d get boxed into a corner, pummeled to pulp. Mr. Shepherd pursed his lips. He had a strange mouth, a nasty little rosebud.

“Keys,” he said, holding out his hand.

Straight to business, then. She circled him, making her approach. She wanted to capture a picture of his face in her mind. It would be very helpful later, once things were properly underway. It would give her all the encouragement she needed.

“I’m still doing my rounds, Mr. Shepherd,” she said.

He took a tiny step back, to preserve the distance between them. “No need for that now, Mrs. King,” he said, eyeing the door.

The other servants were eavesdropping in the kitchen pas­sage. She could feel them, folded just out of sight, contained in the shadows. She placed them like chess pieces in her mind. The chauffeur and the groomsman in the yard, the housemaids on the back stairs. Cook in the pantry, entirely agitated, twisting her handkerchief into indignant knots. William, sequestered in Mr. Shepherd’s office, under close guard. Alice Parker upstairs, keeping well out of trouble. Each of them watching the clock. The entire house was waiting, motion suspended.

“I never leave my work half-finished, Mr. Shepherd,” she said as she slid around him. “You know that.”

And she made for the door.

She saw figures scattering, ducking into pantries and offices. Her boots echoed hard on the flagstones. She felt the cold, damp breeze coming down from the back stairs and wondered, Will I miss it? The chill. The unforgiving scent of carbolic on the air. It wasn’t nice, not at all, but it was familiar. It was funny how you got used to things after so much time. Frightening, even.

Mr. Shepherd followed her. He was like an eel, heavy and vi­cious, and he moved fast when he wanted to.

“Mrs. King,” he called, “we saw you in the gentlemen’s quar­ters last night.”

“I know,” said Mrs. King over her shoulder.

A steep staircase ran from the kitchen passage up to the front hall. She kept her eyes fixed on the green baize door at the top. It was a partition between worlds. On the other side the air thinned and the light became frosted around the edges. “Don’t go up there,” called Shepherd.

Mrs. King didn’t care for this. Being ordered about by Shep­herd made the inside of her nose itch. “I’ve things to check,” she said.

He continued to follow, sending a tremor through the stair­case.

Come on, thought Mrs. King, chase me.

“You stay right here,” he said, reaching to pull her back.

She stopped on the staircase. She wouldn’t run from Shepherd.

He got her by the wrist, his stubby fingers pressing into her veins. His breath smelled stale, but she didn’t recoil. She did the thing he hated most. Looked him straight in the eye.

He said, “What were you doing last night, Mrs. King?”

Shepherd had begun balding over the years, and all he had left were scrubby little hairs dotted right across his brow. Yet still he slicked them with oil. No doubt he waxed them every morning, one by one.

“Perhaps I was sleepwalking.”

“Perhaps?”

“Yes, perhaps.”

Mr. Shepherd loosened his grip slightly. She saw him calcu­lating. “Well. That might change things. I could explain that to Madam.”

“But, then again,” she said, “perhaps I was wide-awake.”

Mr. Shepherd pressed her wrist to the banister. “Keys, Mrs. King.”

She peered up at the green baize door. The house loomed over her, vast and unreachable. The answer she needed was up there. She knew it. Hidden, or sliced into bits, but there. Some­where. Waiting to be found.

I’ll just have to come back and get it, she thought.

She took him to the housekeeper’s room, her room, and he stood guard in the doorway, blocking the light. Already it seemed to belong to her past. It wasn’t cozy, just cramped. On the table was the master’s present to her. Four weeks before, she’d marked her birthday, her neat and tidy thirty-fifth. The master had given her a prayer book. He gave them all prayer books, gilt edging, satin ribbons.

She held her head up as she handed Mr. Shepherd the keys.

“Any others?”

She shook her head.

“We’ll see to your personal effects. You can come and collect them in…” He considered this. “In due course.”

Mrs. King shrugged. They could inspect her bedroom and sniff the sheets and lick the washbasin all they liked. Even give away her uniforms, if it pleased them. Serge dresses, plain rib­bons, tight collars. You could construct any sort of person with those. “Best to choose a new name,” they’d told her when she’d first arrived, and she chose King. They frowned, not liking it—but she held firm: she chose it because it made her feel strong, unassailable. The Mrs. came later, when she made housekeeper. There was no Mr. King, of course.

She kept her navy coat and her hatpins, and everything else she folded away into her black leather Gladstone. There was only one more thing she needed to remove. Pulling open a drawer in the bureau, she rummaged for a pack of papers.

She threw them on the fire. One neat move.

Mr. Shepherd took a step. “What are those?”

“The menus,” said Mrs. King, all the muscles in her chest tight.

The packet was held together with a ribbon, and she watched it darken on the fire. Red turning brown, then black.

“The what?” His eyes hurried around the room, disturbed, as if he were looking for things he’d missed, secrets stuffed and hidden in the walls.

“For Miss de Vries’s ball,” she said.

Mr. Shepherd stared at her. “Madam won’t like it that you did that.”

“I’ve settled all the arrangements,” Mrs. King said with a cool smile. “She can take it from here.”

She studied the ribbon on the grate. It was satin no longer, simply earth and ash. How quickly it changed, dematerialized. How completely it transformed.

Shepherd marched her through the servants’ hall to the mews yard, but he didn’t touch her again. They passed the portrait of the master hanging above the long table. The frame had been draped with black cloth. She wondered when Shepherd would replace the portrait, now that the funeral had passed, now he’d been buried. Would he put up one of Madam instead, something in soft oils and lavender? It would give everyone the willies if he did. That girl’s eyes were like pincers. She guessed Shepherd would delay as long as he could. He’d be mourning his master longer than anyone.

I hope you’re watching from heaven, she said inwardly, looking at the portrait. Or wherever you’ve landed. I hope you see it all play out. I hope they pin your eyes open so you have to watch what I do to this house.

The house. She’d admired it, once. It was bigger than any other on Park Lane. A sprawling mass of pillars and bays, seven floors high from cellars to attics. Newly built, all diamond money, glinting white. It obliterated the light, shriveled everything around it. The neighbors hated it.

Had any house in London ever been decorated in such sumptuous and stupendous style? Miles of ice-cold marble and gleaming parquet. Walls trimmed with French silks and rococo paneling and columns. Electricity everywhere, voltage throb­bing through the walls, electroliers as big as windmills. Enor­mous gas fires. Acres of glass, all smelling wildly of vinegar.

And everywhere, in every room, from floor to ceiling, such treasures: stupendous Van Dycks, giant crystal bowls stuffed with carnations. Objets d’art in gold and silver and jade, cherubs with rubies for eyes and emeralds for toenails. The zebra-hide sofas in the saloon, and the baccarat tables made of ivory and walnut, and the pink-and-onyx flamingos outside the bathrooms. That library, with the most expensive private collection in Mayfair. The Boiserie, the Red Parlor, the Oval Drawing Room, the ballroom: all dressed with peacock feathers and lapis lazuli and an endless supply of lilies.

They didn’t impress Mrs. King at all anymore.

She didn’t shake hands with Mr. Shepherd. “I shall keep you in my prayers, Mrs. King,” he said.

“Do.”

She supposed the upstairs servants were already clearing out her room. The girls would be scrubbing the floorboards with boiling water and soda crystals and taking the bedsheets to be laundered, eliminating any trace of her.

It was important that she didn’t look over her shoulder on the way out. The wrong look at the wrong person could betray her, spoil things when they were only just underway. A pigeon landed on the portico of the gigantic marbled mausoleum as she crossed the yard. She didn’t give it a second glance, didn’t dip her head in respect to the old master. She marched straight past instead.

She stepped into the mews lane, alone. Heard the distant rumble of motors, saw a clutch of wild poppies growing out of a crack in the paving stones. They were being neglected, trampled, yearning upward to the sky. She plucked one, pressed a fragile crimson petal in her palm, held it warm. She took it with her.

Her first theft.

Or, rather, the first correction. It wasn’t simply stealing, not at all.

Excerpted from The Housekeepers by Alex Hay. Copyright © 2023 by Alex Hay. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

 

 

 

BLOG TOUR - THE NIGHT IT ENDED BY KATE GARNER

  

Title: The Night It Ended
Author: Katie Garner
Publisher: MIRA
Release Date: 27th June 2023

BLURB supplied by Harlequin Trade Publishing
Finding the truth seems impossible when her own dark past has her seeing lies everywhere she looks...

From the outside, criminal psychiatrist Dr. Madeline Pine's life appears picture-perfect--she has a beautiful family, a successful mental health practice and a growing reputation as an expert in female violence. But when she's called to help investigate a mysterious death at a boarding school for troubled girls, Madeline hesitates. She's been through tragic cases before, and the one she was entangled in last year nearly destroyed her...

Yet she can't turn away when she hears about Charley Ridley. After the girl was found shoeless and in pajamas at the bottom of an icy ravine on campus, the police ruled it a tragic accident. But the private investigator hired by her mother has his doubts. And if it were Madeline's daughter who died, she'd want to know why.

Arriving at the secluded campus in upstate New York, Madeline's met by an unhelpful skeleton staff and the four other students still on campus during winter break. Each seems to hold a piece of the puzzle. And everyone has secrets--Madeline included. But who would kill to protect them?

Intertwining the narrative with the transcript of an anonymous interview, this stunning suspense debut from Katie Garner will take you on a twisting path where nothing--and no one--is what it seems.

PURCHASE LINKS
HarperCollins
Barnes & Noble
BookShop
Amazon
Books-A-Million

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Garner was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. She has a degree in Art History from Ramapo College and is certified to teach high school Art. She hoards paperbacks, coffee mugs, and dog toys and can be seen holding at least one of those things most of the time.

​Katie lives in a New Jersey river town with her husband, baby boy, and shih-poo where she writes books about women and their dark, secret selves. The Night It Ended is her debut novel.

AUTHOR LINKS
Author site

 https://www.katiegarnerauthor.com/
Twitter

 https://twitter.com/kgarnerauthor
Instagram

 https://www.instagram.com/katiewritesmystery/
Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62679690-the-night-it-ended

 

EXCERPT 

Friday, December 16


I’m speeding home when the phone rings, persistent and angry, demanding to be heard. I know I should answer it, even though I want nothing more than to throw it out the window. I could let the call slide into voice mail, delete it, never hear the voice on the other side.

But I can’t.

I jerk to the side of the icy road to a chorus of blaring horns, dig the phone out from the cavernous tote bag resting on the passenger seat beside me. The phone is sleek and black, brand-new—opposite of the cracked, chunky white one I’m used to shoving in my back pocket.

A sweet little chime and the ringing ends.

1 new voice mail.

Quickly, I glance in the side mirror. Car exhaust melts away into the morning winter sky. Nothing is behind me, nothing but air. I exhale a deep sigh of relief, press the phone to my ear.

“H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine—”

A siren wails in the distance. The phone slips through my fingers, lands mutely in my lap. A knot swells in my throat. I glance in the side mirror again, feel my heart pound, each breath shrinking to tiny gasps. The sirens near. An emergency vehicle speeds past.

It’s only an ambulance.

My body wilts. I take a deep breath. In. Out. The knot in my throat loosens.

I hate the person I’ve become. I’ve never been this ner­vous, this afraid, anxiety and fear clinging to my every move. I wish I could escape—step into someone else’s life, if only for a moment.

Just twelve short months ago everything was different. I was different. Any other December, I would’ve been home, prep­ping for the holidays, shopping online for last-minute deals on things none of us needed. My husband, Dave, would be staying too late at work, his dinner wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil, kept warm on the stove. My teenage daugh­ter, Izzi, would be upstairs in her room, scrolling noiselessly through her phone, feet kicked up on the bed behind her.

The house would’ve hummed with the steady softness of disjointed home life, but instead here I am, lurched to the side of the road, the air frigid in the tiny cabin of my car, listen­ing to a voice mail I never thought I’d hear.

I replay the message:

“H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine. If you get this, I’m Matthew Reyes, a private investigator working on behalf of a family. Listen, I was hoping you could please call me back at this number, I—I’d really appreciate it. We have a sixteen-year-old female who died on school property. The police believe it’s an accident, but the mother hired me to be sure. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill. No witnesses. I thought you might be able to help—given your expertise. Please call me back. Thanks.”

I repeat his words in my head. The girl was found at the bot­tom of a hill—I can picture it, picture her. She’s there, fallen sideways, her body splashed across the woodland floor. Moss and stones, skin and blood, leaves and twigs. I don’t know her, but I don’t have to. I already feel as if she were mine.

The man who left the voice mail, Matthew Reyes, has a voice both gravelly and weary, and I know what he wants the moment he mentions the school. Police often believe they can demand anything they want and get it immediately—even psychological evaluations—but it takes time to gain trust from strangers, and even more time to tease out the truth. Espe­cially from teenage girls.

I start weighing my options. I’m not sure I’m capable of this, of anything. Especially after last year…especially after what just happened in that too-hot office during this morn­ing’s disastrous therapy session.

My face flushes at the memory of the woman who’d been sitting cross-legged in front of me. Her beautiful face. Her pink silk shirt blurring out of focus. Her condescending tone—as though the therapy sessions weren’t all for her benefit to begin with.

That’s what I have to remind myself. That’s what I have to hold on to. They’re for her. Not me. I’m the one who’s fine. I should be taking comfort in that, taking comfort in the fact that I never have to see her beautiful face again, never have to be reminded of—

It’s over. I didn’t have a choice before. Now I do. I have lots of choices. An avalanche of choices. My life before today was preprogrammed for me. Not anymore. I fixed it.

Tears slip down my cheeks. I bite them back, strangle the phone in my lap, squeeze it so tight I wonder how it fails to snap in two. Choices. Possibilities.

My mind whirls as I punch the gas, merge into traffic, race home. I run inside, slam the door, bolt the lock. Gaz­ing around my gloom-infested house, I shrivel back as wind blows branches of a nearby tree, scraping the side of the house like fingernails.

Peering at the bulging paper bag of prescriptions on the kitchen island, my eyes prick with tears. My glasses fog. I take them off, rub the lenses clean on my turtleneck.

After so many months, the pills should be working. I should stop taking them altogether. Just throw them all in the toi­let, flush them down, watch them whirl around the porce­lain bowl.

I think of words my daughter, Izzi, said to me: Mom, please just stop.

Stop.

I don’t know the person I’ve become, too empty, too full, all at once. I need to change. I want to be different. Every day, I think of ways I can be. It can still happen. I’m free now. I have choices now, possibilities. Maybe it’s never too late to change everything. Maybe I just need to escape.

Besides, wiggle room is all it takes for a snake to get out of its skin.

The phone rings again. I snuff the urge to hurl it across the room before glancing at the screen. It’s the same num­ber as before. The same number as the voice mail. I hold my breath and answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello—is this Dr. Madeline Pine?”

“Um—yes. It is.” My heart thuds. “Who’s this?”

A sigh of relief, deep and heavy, into the phone. “This is private investigator Matthew Reyes. Thank you so much for answering, Dr. Pine. I—I know it’s a chaotic time of year and you’re probably busy with family but…would you be able to make a trip up to Iron Hill?”

“I—I don’t know where that is.”

“It’s about two hours north of Poughkeepsie. Upstate New York.”

“Right, okay.” Far. Very far. Too far for my ailing car to make it. I know I should just buy a new one, but I can’t. My husband Dave always said the color perfectly matched my eyes. Now I can’t even remember the last time we looked at each other.

“So, are you busy this weekend?” Reyes asks, then pauses. “I mean, you’re sure you don’t mind ditching your family right before the holidays?”

“When you put it that way, it sounds horrible.” Awkward laugh. “But, um, my husband and daughter aren’t home now, anyway—they’ve gone away to visit my in-laws.”

“You have no idea how grateful I’d be if you could make it,” he says, sounding hopeful. I don’t know what he looks like, but I can imagine him smiling. “I mean, I’ve been call­ing around to different psychologists all day, and—well, it should only be for a couple of days. You’d definitely be back by Christmas, the latest.”

I wince, feel a surge of sorrow. I’m too embarrassed to admit that Dave and Izzi have no intention of spending the holidays with me this year. It’s what I deserve after what I did.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “please refresh my memory. Have we ever met? You said you’re a private investigator hired by the victim’s—er, the deceased’s—family?”

“Yes, I mean, we haven’t met, but I read about the work you did on the Strum case last year. I believe one of the victims was around the same age as our current victim. And I pulled up your book online—Dark Side: A Psychological Portrait of the Criminal Female Mind. You specialize in women. Just so hap­pens the case is at an all-girls boarding school.”

My stomach clenches. Focus. Deep breath. I shift my gaze to the calendar hanging in the kitchen. I don’t even know why I bother to keep one anymore. I have the same schedule now, week in, week out. Before, the month of December would’ve been filled with holiday office parties, Izzi’s end-of-year school activities, Dave’s plans for winter break, which I’d always beg him to change.

I glance up. Friday, December 16. This morning’s therapy session slashes across my mind again. I see her face. Blank, empty. Her lips begin to curl around a word. I see myself in the reflection of her eyes. I’m close. Closer. I swallow hard.

“The, um, the students don’t go home for the holidays?” I ask, slumping down to the floor.

“Winter break is Saturday, the tenth to New Year’s. A few students stayed behind.” Reyes pauses. “The students who either couldn’t travel for various reasons or chose not to go home.”

I lean the back of my head against the wall.

Reyes continues. “The school is asking me to wrap up my investigation before students and staff return January 2.”

“Okay…”

He senses my discomfort, keeps talking. “Please. Please say yes. You mentioned you have a daughter. How would you feel if it were her?” he asks. “If she was found dead, you’d want closure, right? To be sure everything was done by the book and no stone was left unturned.”

My stomach flips. “Of course I would.”

“So, please. Please say you’ll help.”

I think of my daughter, Izzi, the lengths I’d go to if she was found at the bottom of a hill. Even if it was an accident, I’d want to know why. I’d want to know how she got there.

If she was alone. Afraid. Or if someone else was responsible. I’d want to know. I’d find them, I’d—

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I confess.

I shut my eyes, see her face again, legs crossed, sitting prim in that too-hot office, the heat blasting, the furniture too big for the tiny space. I tug at the neck of my sweater, suddenly tight, see my reflection in her eyes—close, so close.

No. Stop. I suck up a big breath, blow it all out.

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but after that case last year—” My voice cracks.

“The Strum case?” A note of curiosity in Reyes’s question.

“Yeah. Since then, things have been difficult. I ended up taking some time off—”

“I—I wasn’t aware. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It just—it makes cases like this difficult.”

“Oh—”

“But before I say yes or no, can you give me an overview? What, exactly, I’ll be doing when I get there? I want to be sure I know what I’m stepping into.”

Reyes lets out a breath. “Yeah—yes, of course,” he says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Well, it happened at a private, all-girls boarding school called Shadow Hunt Hall. They have a very small student body on a very large campus. It’s densely wooded and incredibly isolated. It’s one of those ‘back-to-nature, no technology on campus’ sort of places. The girls are mostly… I guess the best word for it is—troubled?”

“Isn’t that the best kind of girl?”

“Uh, here,” he says, ignoring my attempt at a joke. “I’ll send you some info.”

I glance at the screen, see he’s texted a link to the school’s website. I tap it open, swipe down the page. The school is an­cient. Giant and stone, with iron gates and actual turrets, like a possessed fairy-tale castle. The curriculum looks interesting.

Definitely nontraditional. It’s all music and arts and dance. I skim the mission statement:

We believe in a holistic, individual approach to learning and reha­bilitation, focusing on a curriculum centered on nature, group trust, and a healthy mind-body connection.

Code words for no junk food or internet.

Reyes waits patiently on the other end as I peruse the site. I click on the Tuition & Financial Aid page and flinch. A single term is more than twice the down payment we put on the house.

“You there? Dr. Pine?”

I lick my lips. “I’m here.”

He pauses. “I’m having trouble getting any of the students to even talk to me,” he admits. “That’s why I need you.”

I think of Izzi, chewing on her fingernails, avoiding eye con­tact when I ask how her day went. Ever since she started high school it’s been all one-word answers—good, fine—before she’d bound upstairs, not to be seen again until dinner.

So I can’t imagine how the girls at this boarding school would react to a male private investigator showing up out of nowhere, prodding them with questions right after their classmate died. No doubt they’d recoil, want nothing to do with him.

“Okay… I’ll help you,” I whisper.

Excerpted from The Night It Ended. Copyright © 2023 by Katie Garner. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 

REVIEWS 

"The ending was pretty shocking and definitely not what I was expecting" —Novel Gossip

"Standing ovation for the brilliant Katie Garner! Captivating, ingenious, and absolutely audacious, this tour de force in structure and storytelling kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. Yes, The Night It Ended is a dark gothic murder investigation at a mysterious school for troubled girls—but don’t judge, don’t assume, don’t try to figure it out—just let Garner's masterful sleight of hand carry you away through the gasp-worthy twists and turns. Do not miss this!" —Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of The House Guest

“A gorgeously atmospheric dark academic thriller set at a snowy boarding school so vividly rendered you can practically feel the frost freezing your blood. Garner centers female rage in the most delicious and page-turning of ways, plunging readers into a world where women’s machinations, conspiracies, anger, and even violence rule all. The Night It Ended is a twisty, frantically-paced story you’ll be desperate to devour all the way to the ice-cold ending.” —Ashley Winstead, author of The Last Housewife

“Set at an exclusive school for trouble teenaged girls, The Night It Ended by Katie Garner is dark, twisted, and utterly compelling. Impossible to put down, you won’t know who or what to believe and the creepy location will have you looking over your shoulder more than once. One heck of a debut with an ending that left me speechless.” —Hannah Mary McKinnon, internationally bestselling author of Never Coming Home

“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author of You're Invited

“Wow. I loved this. Compulsively readable. I flew through it. Brilliant use of the unreliable narrator. I enjoyed the police interviews interwoven with the present-day mystery. It kept me on my toes. And that last plot twist…amazing. I did not see it coming.” –Amber Garza, author of When I Was You

“Katie Garner's debut novel is a chilly, twisty ride—think dark academia meets Gillian Flynn. The Night It Ended is both a brooding Gothic mystery set at a boarding school for wayward girls and a jittery domestic thriller and just when you think you've got a handle on the story, Garner pulls the rug out from under you. I couldn't put it down.”—Halley Sutton, author of The Lady Upstairs 

“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author of You're Invited