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Published May 2021
352 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
"So that was all it took," I thought. "That was all it took for me to feel like I had all the power in the world. One morning, one moment, one yellow-haired boy. It wasn't so much after all."
Meet Chrissie...
Chrissie is eight and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. The feeling made her belly fizz like soda pop. Her playmates are tearful and their mothers are terrified, keeping them locked indoors. But Chrissie rules the roost -- she's the best at wall-walking, she knows how to get free candy, and now she has a feeling of power that she never gets at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer.
Twenty years later, adult Chrissie is living in hiding under a changed name. A single mother, all she wants is for her daughter to have the childhood she herself was denied. That's why the threatening phone calls are so terrifying. People are looking for them, the past is catching up, and Chrissie fears losing the only thing in this world she cares about, her child.
Nancy Tucker leaves the reader breathless as she inhabits her protagonist with a shocking authenticity that moves the reader from sympathy to humor to horror to heartbreak and back again.
"[A] spectacular fiction debut...The taut, meticulously observed narration...mines the dangers that childhood trauma causes both its victims and those around them. Fans of Lisa Jewell and smart psychological suspense will eagerly await Tucker's next." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This novel is a riveting thriller in every sense, but Tucker is asking big questions, too. Can society forgive the unforgivable? Does everyone deserve a second chance? She forces us to reconsider the perils of poverty and neglect. A chilling suspense novel about guilt, responsibility, and redemption." - Kirkus Reviews
"This sharp-edged and highly discussable book is difficult to put down." - Booklist
"A darkly dazzling debut, a harrowing story of neglect and cruelty written with a delicate touch and a big heart. As gripping as the tensest of thrillers and as moving and humane as the most intimate of memoirs, I loved this book." - Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs
"Tense, addictive and powered by an unforgettable narrative voice, The First Day of Spring gives us not just a window into the confused psychology of a child driven to violence, but a thoughtful consideration of the redemptive power of love and friendship." - Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train
"The First Day Of Spring is a gut-wrenching tale about the effects of neglect and loneliness on a child. Eight-year-old Chrissie's voice is so raw and authentic that I could not stop turning the pages, desperate to find out what she would do next. A harrowing, incisive debut." - Stephanie Wrobel, author of Darling Rose Gold
This information about The First Day of Spring was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Nancy Tucker studied psychology at the University of Oxford. This is her first work of fiction.
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