genre: mystery/thriller
Patch with his eyepatch and Saint with her chain-smoking, bus-driving grandma, are two misfit kids that find each other in middle school. To have a true best friend, it's the greatest gift, especially at that age. But both of their lives hit a complete trajectory shift when Patch is brave enough to defend a local girl from tragedy - and Saint is left behind. Both of their experiences will lead to trauma and loss, love and a fierce desire to protect, as well as the kind of obsession that can both taint and color an entire lifetime.
Wow. I went into this knowing nothing, as I love to do. Reader, you should know that it is LONG. Not QUITE too long, for me, but bordering on it. Yes, it would've benefited maybe from some tighter editing, but when the climax came (me, with my hand over my mouth as I listened, barely breathing) I couldn't think what could've possibly been left out. All the little details, they matter. The cast of characters is large and complex and while there is both bone-deep friendship and the love of the family you choose, there is also a deep and complex kind of evil. The kind that of evil watches you over your shoulder for decades and can't get away from.
Here is all the things I loved in this book that swirled around to make this the kind of listening experience that lingered in my head: paintings hung in pride of place, honey making, tenacious investigators, the power of memory, the way people can rescue us both from literal catastrophe and from the demons inside us and, most of all, the beauty in a life, saved.
Five stars for how it captured me, in all the ways.
content warnings: lots of adult material in here but no graphic sex
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