Ruin Falls

February 17, 2014
In Milchman’s intense follow-up to 2013’s Cover of Snow, Liz Daniels and her husband, Paul, along with their two children—six-year-old Ally and eight-year-old Reid—are en route to visit Paul’s estranged parents in rural Junction Bridge, N.Y., when they decide to stop for the night. The next morning, Liz awakens in their hotel room to discover that Ally and Reid are gone. Within hours, Paul has also slipped away, and police conclude that he took the two youngsters. Stunned by his duplicity, Liz returns to their Adirondack home, where she scours Paul’s past for clues about where he’s gone and why. After an unsteady start, Milchman weaves a complex and intriguing tale, adeptly pacing the narrative as danger escalates for both Liz and her kids. Most impressive, though, is Liz’s transformation from a meek wife, content to cede all decisions to her dominant husband, to a strong, capable woman determined to rescue her children at any cost to herself. Agent, Julia Kenny, Dunow, Carlson and Lerner Literary Agency.

Starred review from March 15, 2014

Liz Daniels has no idea that a vacation with her husband and two young children will be the beginning of a heart-wrenching nightmare. After an exhausting day of driving, the family opts to stay at a hotel overnight. Liz awakens the next morning to find her children missing, and she and her husband, Paul, enlist help from hotel security and the local police. Then Paul suddenly disappears into thin air, and Liz is stunned to discover that her spouse is the abductor of her children. When the authorities refuse to become involved, citing parental custody issues, Liz begins her own frantic and relentless search. Digging into Paul's past and tracing his recent computer history, she first discovers hidden family secrets and then a connection to a cult-like underground society. The closer Liz gets to the truth and to finding her children, the more the danger intensifies. VERDICT Essential for psychological thriller fanatics, Milchman's second novel trumps her acclaimed debut, Cover of Snow. Extreme, heart-pounding action follows this determined mother as she risks everything to save her children. [See Prepub Alert, 10/20/13.]--Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2014
Liz and Paul Daniels have two young children and live a seemingly idyllic life on an organic family farm. Paul is a professor determined to live a green, postconsumer lifestyle, and Liz goes along with it as much as possible. They take their first family vacation in years, a road trip to visit Paul's parents on their commercial farm, stopping at a hotel along the way. When Liz wakes up, her children are gone, and then Paul disappears, too. The police immediately abandon their search, considering it a domestic dispute, and Liz is both heartbroken and furious. Determined to find her children, she begins the search with her in-laws, who deny any knowledge of their son or grandchildren. She soon heads home to Paul's computer and his office at the university, quickly realizing that she doesn't know her husband at all. How far Paul will go to live his politics and how a determined mother can seemingly overcome almost any obstacle form the core of this tautly written page-turner. Milchman shows her chops with this sophomore effort (following Cover of Snow, 2013), and she carves out a new niche with this unusual mix of ecothriller and family suspense drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)