Half Moon Bay

February 15, 2018

Devastated by the loss of her daughter, Jane moves from San Francisco to quiet, salt-sprayed Half Moon Bay. Then the town's children start disappearing, and both Jane and her neighbors wonder whether she's somehow brought terror to their midst. From the author of the psychological twisters A Circle of Wives and the New York Times best-selling Turn of Mind.

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May 14, 2018
In this well-crafted novel of psychological suspense from bestseller LaPlante (Coming of Age at the End of Days), 39-year-old Jane O’Malley moves from San Francisco to a village on the California coast near Half Moon Bay, where she works with plants at Smithson’s Nursery in an effort to get over the death of her 16-year-old daughter, Angela, in a car accident and her divorce from husband Rick, which was a consequence of that tragedy. Then, five-year-old Heidi McCready disappears, and her body turns up carefully wrapped in a blanket left in a field eight days later. More children go missing, much to the consternation of the members of the little community. Jane feels empathy for the bereaved parents, but her erratic behavior causes the FBI to consider her a suspect. The seductive Edward Stanton, an environmental activist, and his beautiful companion, Alma Godwin, who happen to know about Jane’s losses, challenge her to move beyond her pain as a surprising climax approaches. This complex character study will appeal as much to mainstream fiction readers as genre fans. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenburg Literary.

May 15, 2018
A grieving, unstable mother who has lost her teenage daughter relocates to a small town on the coast of northern California in this brooding suspense novel.Jane O'Malley, whose daughter was killed the year before by a distracted driver and whose husband has left her, moves to Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, to try to make a new life for herself. A former biologist, she works at a plant nursery guiding customers in the use of native plants. In her spare hours, she walks deserted beaches late at night and considers drowning herself. When young girls from the area begin to disappear and then turn up dead a week later, Jane comes under suspicion. Deserted by some of her local friends and bored with others, she forms an increasingly desperate bond with an alluring new couple. Edward, an environmental activist with a taste for lawbreaking, is a "dark archangel" with "a face that would heal wounds." Alma, a physics professor, is his equal, gorgeous with eyes that are "a strange blue-green, very intense." Readers looking for a mystery with diverting twists and turns won't find them here. This is a classic story of a woman in jeopardy, with the heroine making one bad, though emotionally credible, decision after another. LaPlante (Coming of Age at the End of Days, 2015, etc.) anchors the plot, and Jane's mood swings and secrets, in a physically real and detailed world. The cozy little town, with its family coffee shop and popular pumpkin festival, is contrasted with the dark, starkly beautiful, and deserted midnight seaside, paralleling the alternation in Jane's mental states. Secondary characters drawn in swift, precise strokes, living their lives largely outside Jane's troubled trajectory, help make this a fully developed novel rather than simply a mood piece.In a book that's more acute psychological study than thriller, LaPlante uses a seductively dangerous landscape to mirror her heroine's inner life.

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