The Lost Girl of Craven County

A stranger comes to town and gives purpose to a struggling young woman in this winning historical from Matchar (In the Shadow of the Greenbrier). In 1930s North Carolina, Millie Green has a mental breakdown while her younger brother dies from cancer. Three years later, still grieving and ashamed, the 25-year-old is living at home in the Jewish community of New Bern, where her mother tries to marry her off to a series of undesirable suitors. One day she discovers a girl lying bruised and dazed behind the Greens’ pickle warehouse. The family take in the young woman, who appears to be mute and unfamiliar with English. Millie tries to communicate with the girl, who eventually tells Millie she is Cecilia Aiken, a runaway from an institution that forcibly sterilizes young women deemed mentally or morally unfit. Cecilia begs Millie for help freeing her sister from the institution, and Millie, moved by Cecilia’s story, agrees to try. Though the ending is a bit too neatly redemptive, Matchar offers a clear-eyed view into the period’s poverty, misogyny, and injustice, along with a stirring depiction of resilience on the part of those “the world considers crazy or bad or broken.” There’s much to admire in this feisty tale. Agent: Allison Hunter, Trellis Literary Management. (Apr.)