Where They Found Her

February 9, 2015
Edgar-finalist McCreight (Reconstructing Amelia) smoothly juggles multiple voices in her strong second novel. Four of them belong to freelance journalist Molly Sanderson: Molly’s own contemporary voice, her recorded psychiatric sessions, her therapy-era journal, and her published articles for the local paper in Ridgedale, N.J., a Princeton-like community where she lives with her professor husband, Justin, and their five-year-old daughter, Ella. Molly is assigned the story of a newborn discovered dead in a creek on university property—a dicey subject given Molly’s loss of her own baby two years earlier and her subsequent depression. Other perspectives include that of Sandy, a bright high school dropout; Sandy’s reckless mother, Jenna, who abruptly vanishes; and Barbara, the “perfect mom” of a kindergarten classmate of Ella’s, Cole, who starts exhibiting troubling behavior. Molly’s reporting uncovers a slew of dark secrets, some too close to home. While McCreight’s plot contains some far-fetched coincidences, her deft writing makes for a thoroughly riveting tale. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff and Associates.

March 1, 2015

When a body is found in Ridgedale--an otherwise quiet suburban New Jersey college town--cub reporter Molly Anderson is unexpectedly given the assignment for the Ridgedale Reader. Molly, who recently suffered a traumatic late-term miscarriage, has finally lifted herself out of a debilitating depression and sees her new job as a way to rebuild her life. But when she discovers that the victim in the river is a newborn girl, Molly is forced to confront the haunting pain of her own baby's death; in the process, she uncovers dirty secrets about a town that strives to maintain its idealized image. The story is told from the point of view of three Ridgedale women (high school dropout Sandy, PTA president Barbara, and Molly) and is supplemented with transcripts, journal entries, and newspaper clippings in a manner reminiscent of McCreight's successful debut novel, Reconstructing Amelia. VERDICT Some elements of this plot and narrative feel contrived and too coincidental, but overall this tightly spun sophomore effort will please fans of Amelia. McCreight has a keen grasp of the epistolary technique and is adept at providing readers the puzzle pieces they need to build a broader picture. A solid follow-up. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/14.]--Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2015

Another thriller for adults that teens will devour. As she did in Reconstructing Amelia (HarperCollins, 2013), McCreight explores how the mistakes made by parents when they themselves were teens are revealed to their children and the devastation they can wreak. Ridgedale looks like the perfect college town and reporter Molly certainly hopes it is the place where she and her husband can recover from the devastating stillbirth of their second child. But when Molly's first assignment in their new town is to cover the discovery of a dead newborn in the campus woods, she has to quickly figure out if her investigation will bring her closure or return her to the depths of grief from which she's just recovered. While the protagonist reports on the gruesome crime, teen Sandy is desperate to find her hard-partying mom before they're evicted. In their parallel searches, Molly and Sandy begin to uncover some very dark secrets in Ridgedale's past. McCreight plants seeds of doubt in all of the protagonists, from the police chief to a high-strung soccer mom. Although some of the plot and the twist ending are slightly predictable, readers will keep flipping through pages. VERDICT Young adult fans of Jodi Picoult or Elizabeth Berg will enjoy this mystery.-Meghan Cirrito, formerly of Brooklyn Public Library

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
The discovery of an infant's body rocks a seemingly idyllic New Jersey town in McCreight's intense sophomore effort. Accustomed to writing lifestyle articles, reporter Molly Sanderson-a recent transplant to upscale Ridgedale with her English-professor husband and young daughter-never expected her first hard-news story to involve a dead baby. She's still reeling from her own miscarriage, and when an unidentified newborn girl is found in the woods near the college campus, it hits close to home. Expanding on the alternating-perspectives technique she used in her first novel, Reconstructing Amelia (2013), McCreight slowly lays out the pieces of the grim puzzle, which include Molly's ever widening investigation; the fears of the town as expertly conveyed through comments left on Molly's online news stories; and a complex relationship between two teenage girls from different sides of the tracks. At 16, Sandy Mendelson is more mature than her hard-partying mother, Jenna, who thinks nothing of parading a series of men (and drugs) in front of her daughter. After dropping out of school to help earn money for rent, Sandy is trying to get her GED diploma with the help of tutor Hannah Carlson, a high school senior whose life couldn't be more different. The daughter of Ridgedale's police chief-who's a reluctant source for Molly-and a demanding mother, Hannah is a tightly coiled spring. As rumors abound and Molly investigates the town's-and the college's-squeaky clean image, the baby's identity and her parentage threaten to tear Ridgedale apart. Genuinely suspenseful and disturbing; McCreight delivers a provocative, timely novel that reminds us that sometimes the things that shine the brightest have the dirtiest underbellies.

March 15, 2015
A quaint college town's myriad secret betrayals are exposed when an infant's body is found on Ridgedale University's campus, and local reporter Molly Anderson connects the location to an incident that claimed another young life decades ago. That death was ruled accidental, but with only six unnatural deaths in Ridgedale in the past 20 years, how likely is it that two would be discovered in the same spot? Molly, a reporter for the Ridgedale Reader, covers the story at no small price; she's rebounding from the recent stillbirth of her daughter but digs into the investigation to prove that she hasn't lost herself. Sharply intelligent, tenacious Molly shares the narrative with tightly wound supermom Barbara and Sandy, a teenager desperately searching for her missing party-girl mother. McCreight's much-anticipated second novel (following Reconstructing Amelia, 2013) is a gripping and tender examination of misplaced trust. Pair with Keija Parssinen's The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (2015) for contrasting stories about the impact of an infant's death in small-town America.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)