From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train
comes a novel about friendship and the memories that haunt us.
On the night of her high school graduation, Kathryn Campbell sits around
a bonfire with her four closest friends, including the beautiful but
erratic Jennifer. "I'll be fine," Jennifer says, as she walks away from
the dying embers and towards the darkness of the woods. She never came
back.
Ten years after Jennifer's unexplained disappearance, Kathryn is a
grad-school dropout living in Virginia, stuck in a dead-end writing job
and marriage. She has few close friends; most people have learned not to
depend on her. When she decides to leave her husband, she ships her
boxes to her mother's house in Bangor, Maine. She has nowhere else to
go.
When Kathryn returns home, her former classmates are preparing for their
ten-year reunion. Old questions about graduation night surface. Jennifer
begins to dominate Kathryn's life, just as she did in high school.
Enigmatic and troubled, Jennifer had always depended on Kathryn's
devotion and asked for sacrifices. A decade after Jennifer walked into
the woods alone, Kathryn decides that she must follow her friend's lead,
one last time.
Involving herself in the daily rhythms of small-town life, Kathryn
begins an investigation into her past. She renews contacts with old
friends and teachers, using her skills as a journalist to reconstruct
the life that she and Jennifer shared. Kathryn knows that she must
examine what she knew about her friend, and what she didn't. She must
decide what she is willing to risk to know the truth. She must decide
what her own future is worth. With nothing left to lose, she is
determined to answer one simple question: What ever happened to Jennifer
Pelletier?
