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What happens when a life-time of learned defenses suddenly stop working?

This is a story about revenge, misogyny, rage and the sort of evil that keeps you awake at night. But at the heart of it, this is really a story about love. About guilt. And most of all, about letting go.

“Tell her I want to hold onto her as tight as I can until she understands that I will never be healed until she is”

Leigh and Callie are thirty-something year-old sisters. One is a model of strength and success, able to face a crisis head-on, her life a series of tightly crammed boxes, ruthlessly effective in their obliterating protection. The other, a sweetly compassionate dreamer, is caught up in endless cycles of soaring flight and gut-wrenching despair, held mercilessly hostage to the availability of her next needle.

“We both forgot because it was the only way we could survive.”

Set in a Covid-tainted world that is riddled with modern-day pandemic nuance, Callie and Leigh’s story is heartbreaking, chillingly poignant, and terrifying. As a serial rapist strikes at the heart of Atlanta’s most vulnerable, it’s impossible not feel the pull of this claustrophobic and strangely-masked world; one tell-tale sign of a crime and justice system disquietingly impacted by global epidemic.

Callie and Leigh are quickly caught up into the horrific web of crime which is now tangled with their past and tainted with their individual reactions to their deeply hidden feelings of guilt and shame.

“You can’t be sorry for something that you couldn’t control. “

The pace of the story is dark and relentless, the plotting devious and clever. I found myself unable to rest until I’d read this one through and found the ending both satisfying and emotional.

A big thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.