For fans of true crime podcasts, genealogy websites and James Lee Burke novels comes this debut by Sara Herchenroether. This novel is so sly, wrapping you up in the “what happened, who dunnit, and why” that before you know it you’re thinking about mortality, the value of our lives and what gives us each meaning “to be.” The human condition here is a hard truth landed with a soft blow.
People tend to think of us as shadows. Blurred black mist. Often, it’s “out of the corner of my eye.” People sense the cold. I’ve heard of ghost hunters who use a tape measure, laying it on the ground to mark our boundaries. I don’t want to be measured.
In 1983, deep in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, the bodies of a young woman and two children were found. Who were they? How did they get there?
Thirty years later, two women find themselves drawn to the cold case. Librarian Laura MacDonald begins her own investigation as a way to distract herself from breast cancer treatments and becomes consumed by her search for answers. Jean Martinez is a veteran detective determined to keep working cold cases for the Sierra County police force even as her family begs her to retire. With only fragments from dusty case files and a witness who doesn’t want to remember, this unlikely duo is determined—no matter the cost—to uncover the truth behind the murders. And with their help, the woman in the woods is finally able to tell her story on her own terms and summon the power to be found. The Night Flowers—a haunting debut thriller written with pulse-pounding precision and a deep understanding of the psychology of violence and the tenacity of those who combat it—announces the arrival of Sara Herchenroether as an exciting new voice.
Sara Herchenroether lives outside Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, four young children, one old dog, and two rescue kittens. Sara is a breast cancer survivor.
