cover image What She Left Behind

What She Left Behind

Tracy Bilen. Simon Pulse, $9.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-4424-3951-1

Sixteen-year-old Sara and her mother are plotting to skip town to escape from Sara's abusive father, a retired cop who was traumatized by an incident on the job. He has also become delusional since his son Matt's suicide, acting as if Matt is still alive. Sara waits at Dairy Dream as planned, but her mother never shows; although her father claims she's on a business trip, Sara fears that something is terribly wrong. Sara's budding romance with a boy from school intermittently distracts her from her father's increasingly erratic behavior (and provides the story with moments of lightness), but Sara is isolated in her rural Michigan town. She can't even turn to the police chief, her father's loyal friend, for help ("It's like I'm trapped inside some Stephen King novel instead of my own life"). With growing desperation, she feigns normalcy until she can assemble enough clues to find her mother. Through Sara's free-writing assignments and internal dialogue, Bilen reveals a chilling picture of domestic violence. Sharp prose and an increasingly tense plot make this debut a page-turner. Ages 14%E2%80%93up. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (May)