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Published Jan 2016
288 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
From the award-winning author of The Lake of Dead Languages comes a chilling new psychological thriller about a professor accused of killing her favorite student in a hit-and-run accident.
Nan Lewis - a creative writing professor at a state university in upstate New York - is driving home from a faculty holiday party after finding out she's been denied tenure. On her way, she hits a deer, but when she gets out of her car to look for it, the deer is nowhere to be found. Eager to get home and out of the oncoming snowstorm, Nan is forced to leave her car at the bottom of her snowy driveway to wait out the longest night of the year - and the lowest point of her life…
The next morning, Nan is woken up by a police officer at her door with terrible news - one of her students, Leia Dawson, was killed in a hit-and-run on River Road the night before. And because of the damage to her car, Nan is a suspect. In the days following the accident, Nan finds herself shunned by the same community that rallied around her when her own daughter was killed in an eerily similar accident six years prior. When Nan begins finding disturbing tokens that recall the death of Nan's own daughter, Nan suspects that the two accidents are connected.
As she begins to dig further, she discovers that everyone around her, including Leia, is hiding secrets. But can she uncover them, clear her name, and figure out who really killed Leia before her reputation is destroyed for good?
"Goodman provides an insightful look at revenge, grief, and rebuilding one's life after a horrific loss." - Publishers Weekly
"With romance folded between scenes of deadly danger, this is an engrossing mystery." - Booklist
"Goodman, a creative writing teacher and prolific novelist, has produced an uninspired story that hinges on a string of coincidences, a main character who isn't very interesting, and a romance that seems wedged into the story by force instead of naturally developing." - Kirkus
"A suspense-filled page-turner...This engrossing novel will keep readers guessing unitil the end, which showcases the resilience of human nature and the will to survive." - RT Reviews
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
I started writing at age nine, when my teacher introduced the topic 'Creative Writing' and I wrote a ninety-page, crayon-illustrated collection entitled The Adventures of the Magical Herd in which a girl named Carol lives with a herd of magical horses. I knew from that moment I wanted to be a writer and that I'd always find a way to rewrite my own life.
During my teens I wrote poetry and was awarded the Young Poet of Long Island award. I took a break from writing to major in Latin at Vassar College, where I fell in love with language and the Hudson Valley, two themes that would reappear in my first published novel, the bestselling and critically acclaimed novel, The Lake of Dead Languages (Ballantine, 2001). The novel is about a Latin teacher who returns to a girls' school in the ...
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