The best word to describe Jodi Lynn Anderson's The Vanishing Season is haunting. It's set in the outskirts of a small town without even reliable cell phone reception. And the living seem not to be the only inhabitants.
The town is being rocked by a rude awakening, a loss of innocence. Something that could not possibly happen here is most definitely happening. Teenage girls are going missing and turning up dead. Panic is setting in along with the bitter cold winter. People are isolating themselves behind locked doors. Businesses are shutting down.
The outskirts consists of three houses, each containing a teenager. There's Maggie who has just moved from Chicago with her parents when her mother lost her job. There's the impetuous and seemingly irresistible Pauline. And there's Liam, son of the town pariah. His dad manages to piss off the whole town with his in your face promotion of atheism.
Pauline and Liam have been a couple seemingly forever. Maggie initially is friends with both. But when things change there is a sense of loss and betrayal.
With dread in the town and drama in the outskirts all are locked in the brutal grip of winter. Who will not make it through to spring?
On a purrrsonal note, I'm a grandmother. No, my kids haven't gone and procreated. It's the official launch day for Amber's first solo book (she's had stories in a number of fine anthologies), Little White Flowers. It's the first volume in a trilogy. I've seen that creation evolve from first draft (which can be considered a literary sonogram) through every stage of its evolution. So, yes, I'm a Grammy. Instead of knitting booties and offering to babysit I get to spread the word.
A great big shout out goes out to my gifted, talented first born. Check out amberhathaway.com. And if finely crafted horror stories are your fiction go tos, Little White Flowers most definitely belongs on your summer reading list.
Jules Hathaway
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