Thirteen-year-old Lizzie Hood and her next-door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable, best friends who swap clothes, bathing suits, and field-hockey sticks and between whom—presumably—there are no secrets. Then one afternoon, Evie disappears, and as a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the balmy suburban community, everyone turns to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, or upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger?
Compelled by curiosity, Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secret after secret and begins to wonder if she knew anything at all about her best friend.
Megan Abbott is an Edgar Award–winning author of several novels and nonfiction and the 2019 recipient of the Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. Her novel The Fever won the International Thriller Writers Award and Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and was chosen one of the best books of the year by Amazon, National Public Radio, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and the London Guardian, among others. Her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. She received her PhD in English and American literature from New York University. She is a staff writer on HBO’s David Simon show, The Deuce.
Emily Bauer is an award-winning voice-over actress who has read for dozens of popular audiobooks for children and adults, including Margery Williams’s Velveteen Rabbit, Meg Cabot’s Insatiable, and Ann Aguirre’s Enclave. Her film credits include Mona Lisa Smile and Long Distance. She has done voice-overs for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Pokemon and has voiced scores of TV and radio commercials as well as cartoons, talking toys, and video games.