Girl, Forgotten

Finished July 5

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter

The beginning of this book has a day from the early 1980s, where a young woman, Emily Vaughn, is planning to go to her high school prom. She hasn't been to high school in months, and no one wants her there. The reason for that is her pregnancy. Here we see Emily encounter several young men, classmates as well as a teacher, and defy her parents' wishes to head to the school. She gets there, but never gets back home. 

This novel follows U.S. Marshall Andrea Oliver from her graduation day as a marshall through her first assignment. Andrea grew up in the witness protection program, although she wasn't aware of that until recently. Her biological father is a man who is in jail partly due to her mother's testimony. He was also one of the men suspected in Emily Vaughn death. 

When, on her graduation day, Andrea is offered the job of protecting a judge in Delaware who has been receiving death threats, she finds that the judge Esther Vaughn is Emily's mother, and there is a hidden agenda to her posting. Someone wants her to find Emily's killer, and they think it is Andrea's father. 

As Andrea gets her bearings in the small town, getting to know her partner, an experienced marshall with a quirky sense of humour names, Leonard (Catfish) Bible, as well as the locals, she finds there is more going on than she expected. 

As she learns how Bible thinks, she also learns that many people from Emily's life have secrets, and most of them are still in town. 

This is a book that has a lot going on, and some of the plotlines are eye-opening. Andrea has training, but she is learning her job as she goes, and sometimes, she makes a mistake. A book that will keep you guessing until the end. 

The One Real Thing

Finished January 22
The One Real Thing by Samantha Young

This novel is the first of a series, but the only one in the series that I've read. The main character here is Dr. Jessica Huntington. Jessica works as a doctor at a women's prison in Wilmington, Delaware. She works hard, and has no real life outside work. One day she comes across some letters hidden in a book in the prison library. They are all from one woman, and when she does some research, she finds the woman died just one day after the last letter was written. Jessica's only personal break is a vacation with her best friend from her childhood and his family. When he unexpectedly has to cancel, she decides to go to a nearby seaside resort town alone for a break. The same town the letters she found were addressed to. She wonders if she can find the recipient and give him the letters that never reached him.
Other than her distant friend, Jessica doesn't really let anyone into her life. Even when she has needs, her partner for sex is a man she doesn't particularly like, but who's agreeable to keeping their relationship strictly on that level.
As she gradually relaxes on her vacation, she finds the people of Hartwell friendly, and accepting of her as she is. There is one man in particular she is attracted to, Cooper Lawson, owner of a bar on the boardwalk, and the attraction appears to be mutual. But Jessica is afraid of letting people get too close, due to an incident from her past that still haunts her, and this secret may keep her from giving herself completely to her new feelings. The lesson from the letters she found is one she doesn't easily recognize.
This story goes back and forth in point of view between Jessica and Cooper as they each experience the time Jessica spends at Hartwell and their feelings and observations.
The town also has an ongoing issue with a local developer who is looking to buy up property along the boardwalk, and isn't afraid to try anything that works to get it.
As the first in this series, the book introduces a number of interesting characters that I'm sure will be developed in later books. From the shy bookstore owner to the gregarious innkeeper, they all look to have interesting stories.