Publishers Weekly
05/06/2024
Two teens attempt to move on from the aftermath of sexual violence in this suspenseful novel by Richards (Four Found Dead). While attending a college party in Columbus, Ohio, 19-year-old Aster leaves without her 18-year-old cousin Katie. The next morning, Aster learns that Katie has been raped. Eleven months later, the two meet up in Utah to embark on a four-and-a-half-day hike through the desert. Neither girl has been the same since the party, and both hope that the trek will help repair their fractured relationship. Soon after they begin, Aster injures herself on a cactus. Further misfortunes follow, including a rain-and-hail deluge, a confrontation with scorpions and a rattlesnake, and Aster falling ill. Still, the teens trek on until a pair of hikers with disturbing auras appear, prompting Aster and Katie to flee. Just when it seems things couldn’t get worse for the cousins, they do, yet Aster and Katie prove to be a capable and admirable team. These intrepid heroines inspire hope that this foreboding thriller—boasting unrelenting suspense and unremitting pressures—will end in survival. Most characters are white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary. (July)
From the Publisher
"Natalie D. Richards' latest crackles with tension and desert heat. This pulse-pumping survival thriller is not to be missed!" — Kit Frick, author of I Killed Zoe Spanos and The Reunion
Kirkus Reviews
2024-04-05
The Utah wilderness offers cousins Katie and Aster an awe-inspiring setting in which to heal—and maybe even save another person’s life.
Bestselling author Richards’ latest is told in chapters that alternate points of view between the two main characters, as well as a mysterious, unnamed third voice. The novel opens on a night that changes everything for the two girls. Then the action jumps ahead 11 months, as Aster and Katie, who share a love of hiking, are dropped off for a 49-mile, multiday backpacking trip in Utah during which trauma, healing, and a growing, menacing mystery unfold. Wilderness thrills move the story along, although the number of challenges the girls face does begin to beggar belief: scorpions, prickly pear thorns, illness, flooding, a rattlesnake, losing the trail, running low on food and water, encountering sinister people, and experiencing a terrifying accident. The writing evokes a powerful sense of place in the descriptions of the canyons and in the information on outdoor preparedness and safety. But the novel’s real strength lies in the thoughts and conversations the cousins share around being a survivor of trauma as well as the complexities of navigating a relationship with a survivor. They heal while they traverse an unforgiving environment that demands all their wits to survive as the novel comes to a heart-pounding conclusion. Most characters are coded white.
A gripping story of strength in the face of unrelenting challenges. (Thriller. 14-18)
