A Family of Strangers

June 1, 2019
Ryan Gracey always looked up to her picture-perfect older sister, Wendy. At the wrap party for her popular true-crime podcast, Ryan receives a mysterious call from Wendy, who is going into hiding to avoid being arrested for murder. Ryan decamps to her hometown to care for Wendy's two daughters, and she quickly realizes that something is amiss with the girls. As Ryan delves deeper into Wendy's web of lies, she uses her research and criminal-justice expertise to search for her sister. Returning home also means confronting a traumatic event from her past and reconciling with her ex-boyfriend, a former K-9 officer and dog trainer. Richards (When We Were Sisters, 2016) deftly shifts from women's fiction into domestic suspense, but she doesn't sacrifice the emotional acuity that her fans expect. Ryan's relationships are at the heart of the story, and the few shocking reveals are sensitively handled and presented as part of the difficult process of coming to terms with longstanding family secrets. Readers of relationship-focused domestic-suspense authors such as Lisa Jewell will enjoy Richards' pivot into the genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)