Just Jennifer

Longing of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown (Washington Square Press, July 2013)

Summers in New England are meant to be lazy, safe days, but children can often be cruel; a young girl goes missing shortly after Sadie and her best friend have played what they thought was a harmless trick on Francie, an event that continues to haunt Sadie twenty years later, living a good life in the same town, married to a good man with two children.  When a man from her past returns to town, memories of childhood, specifically the events of the summer from when she was twelve.  As Sadie, who looks similar to Francie and often gets mistaken for her, gets caught up in the past, trying to assuage the guilt she still feels and trying to ease the pain of the child she most recently lost, she finds herself doing things she never imagined she would be capable of, all of which lead to a surprise ending that many will not see coming.  Haunting and familiar at the same time.