The American Girl

June 27, 2016
In this gut-wrenching, sometimes gory psychological thriller from Horsley (The Monster’s Wife), Quinn Perkins, a 17-year-old American student who’s boarding with a family, the Blavettes, in tiny St. Roch, France, is hospitalized after emerging from the woods mute and bloody. The Blavettes—mother and father, daughter and son—have disappeared. Molly Swift, an American journalist working for a sensationalist website back home, poses as a relative and gets into Quinn’s hospital room—and her life. Molly sees a great story but then has scruples about Quinn. Can she protect the girl from whatever horrors have overtaken her? When the bodies of the Blavettes are discovered, the authorities think Quinn murdered them. Meanwhile, Molly develops feelings for Valentin, the local policeman. Where does he fit into the big picture? The narrative alternates between the viewpoints of Quinn and Molly, who has the stronger voice, creating something of a structural imbalance. Still, this fierce, convoluted tale offers one surprise after another. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

Having two narrators makes it easy for the listener to switch points of view while listening to this story. Quinn is a troubled teenager who is suffering from amnesia . . . and is possibly in a mess of trouble. Molly is a reporter who will do what it takes, including breaking the rules, to obtain her story. Sometimes a story that jumps back and forth in time is difficult to keep up with in audio format, but not this one. Both Julia Whelan and Nan McNamara use their vocal skills to smoothly shift to whatever character, time, or emotion they are portraying. Even their "teen in a snit" voices, rather than repelling the listener, serve to enhance the story. A.K. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

June 1, 2016
A reporter and an exchange student fight their way through a dangerous psychological maze in coastal France.The camera is still running on the video recording German tourists are making of sunrise over the lavender fields in France when a barefoot and bloodied girl emerges from the woods and is hit by a car. The video goes viral with the plea to help the #AmericanGirl, and Molly Swift cuts short her holiday to try to get past the other hacks camping outside the hospital where the girl, identified as Quinn Perkins, lies in a coma. She's a student from Boston who's been living in St. Roch with the Blavette family on a cultural exchange program. Passing herself off as Quinn's aunt, Molly learns that the girl's chances of coming out of the coma are 50/50. Molly should be pleased that she's so well-placed to scoop her competitors and get a story for her podcast, American Confessional, especially since the Blavettes have gone missing and are therefore good copy. But sympathy for the helpless girl leads her to a more auntlike role than she'd planned. She finds an ally--and a lover--in Inspector Bertrand Valentin, head of the St. Roch police. Molly asks for Quinn to be discharged to her care and begins helping the girl piece together her lost memories. A disturbing picture emerges of Quinn's host family. The father had to sell the family mansion and then disappeared two years ago. The wife was forced to teach school and take exchange students to make ends meet. The daughter starves and cuts herself. Quinn is obsessed with the handsome and charming son even though some of his romantic ideas are a little strange. The mystery of a past student's death, a plea for help sent to Quinn's phone, and the twin caves Les Yeux teach both Molly and Quinn a terrifying lesson about how deceiving appearances can be. Throughout her novel's shifts in narration and chronology, Horsley plays the reader as cleverly as she does the characters.

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May 1, 2016
The caves of St. Roch hold many secrets. Their eeriness sets the tone for this compelling psychological thriller. There is much Poe-like dread and David Lynchlike surrealism in the story of 17-year-old American exchange student Quinn Perkins, a hit-and-run victim after she stumbles out of the woods near the caves, barefoot and bloodied. The story is told in two voices. Quinn speaks to us through blog entries dated before and after the event, and crime journalist Molly Swift, posing as the amnesiac Quinn's aunt, reports to us on her findings. Both women exist in emotional voids resulting from circumstances surrounding their respective childhoods. Molly and the reader need to decide if Quinn is an innocent victim or if she is getting away with murder. This book is also something of a morality tale about bad romantic choices and the dangers of social media. Author Horsley is the cofounder of the online magazine Crimeculture. Recommend this one to fans of Allison Brennan, Jennifer McMahon, and Wendy Corsi Staub.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)