Baby Doll

April 4, 2016
TV writer Overton’s compelling first novel opens where most thrillers end. One winter night, Lilly Riser succeeds in escaping with Sky, the daughter she bore her captor, Rick, who has held her for eight years in the basement of the isolated cabin that he uses as a writing retreat. Rick forgot to bolt the cabin door before going to visit his wife, Missy, whom he heartily dislikes. When Lily reaches the highway, she realizes that she’s just five miles from Crested Glenn, her suburban hometown, which appears to be near New York City. She’s flooded with memories of high school track meets, proms, and happy times shared with her twin sister, Abby. As she climbs the steps of her family home, she thinks that her ordeal is finally over. What follows is an examination of the aftermath of this horrible crime and its impact on her family. Key scenes from the perspective of Rick, a master manipulator, help build the tension. Overton throws in enough twists, turns, and surprises to keep the reader wondering what on earth can happen next. Agent: Eve Attermann, William Morris Endeavor.

May 1, 2016
Held captive for eight years, a woman and her young daughter escape only to find that the outside world can be as frightening as their locked room. Kidnapped at age 16 from outside her high school and subjected to years of systematic abuse and rape, which resulted in a daughter, Lily Riser never thought her captor would let his guard down long enough for her to slip away. But he did, and she took off running, 6-year-old Sky in her arms. When she arrives on foot back at her family home, ironically only a few miles away, she finds the family in shambles. Her father, Dave, died of a heart attack soon after she disappeared, and her mother, Eve, now sleeps with anonymous men. But the biggest change is in her identical twin sister, Abby, once her constant companion and confidante. Pregnant and with the scars of a suicide attempt and the snarls of a recovering addict, Abby is nothing like the sister Lily remembers. Overton overplays her hand by revealing the identity of Lily's abductor early on: the girls' suave high school English teacher, Rick Hanson. With their situation owing more than a passing resemblance to Emma Donoghue's Room (2010), Lily and Sky must learn to live in a world larger than the room Hanson built them, especially Sky, who's never existed outside captivity. The dramas of the Riser women as they try to navigate their respective new lives, complicated by the reappearance of Lily's first love, are compelling but lacking in true dramatic conflict, even with the specter of Hanson lurking and plotting behind bars. Overton, while capturing the unique bond shared by identical twins, never manages to maintain narrative momentum beyond a series of heartfelt vignettes.

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May 1, 2016
Kidnapped by Rick as a teenager, Lily has endured eight years of serving as his dream wife in a soundproofed basement prison. Her daughter, Sky, was born into their family five years ago, and it's for her safety that Lily defies her torturous training and takes advantage of Rick's first mistake. She flees with Sky and is shocked to find that her prison was just a couple of miles away from her family's home. She's dreamed of reuniting with her parents and her twin sister, Abby, but when she finally reaches her childhood home, she learns it's harder than she imagined to reclaim her life. And Rick, far from breaking when Lily's accusation shatters his good-guy image, is determined to punish her for her betrayal, and she knows she can't trust any prison to keep him for long. Debut novelist Overton's television-writing skills are evident here; scenes from Lily's captivity and her post-escape hospital stay are layered with realistic imagery. A tense survivor story for fans of Chevy Stevens' Still Missing (2010) and Chelsea Cain's One Kick (2014) .(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2016

An executive TV writer on Freeform's Shadowhunters, based on Cassandra Clare's best-selling "Mortal Instruments" series, Overton turns in a chiller that went to auction in both the United States and the UK and sold to a half dozen other countries. Protagonist Lily, kidnapped as a teenager, escapes with her daughter after eight years of imprisonment, but freedom is not what she expected.

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