Close Your Eyes

Finished October 9
Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward

This is a novel with a mystery at its heart, but also a novel of loss and of family. We follow two women. One is Lauren, who mother was killed when she was a small girl. Lauren's father was arrested and convicted of the crime, and Lauren and her brother Alex went to live with their maternal grandparents. But Lauren has never really dealt with her loss, and Alex has spent years trying to find evidence to clear his father. Now Alex is leaving to go to Afghanistan as part of a Doctors without Borders team. Lauren feels even more lost without him and finds herself desperate, desperate enough to try to take up Alex's quest for their father's case.
We also follow Sylvia, a woman a decade older than Lauren. Sylvia grew up in New York City, with a bitter mother Pauline, who made no secret of the rejection she'd received by Sylvia's father when she became pregnant. Sylvia finds herself in a relationship with no future, pregnant, and decides to choose her baby rather than her lover. She returns to New York City, looking for help from her best friend Victoria, and instead finds her friend in even worse shape. But in her search for her past, she also finds that she can help someone else.
The two stories connect through these women, and their past. A very enjoyable novel.