"Four generations of women struggle with life in a small Southern town where the heat and lack of options are oppressive and snakes hide in the tall grass. Patrick's writing sparks with stunning observations and a flammable wit." -- Joshua Moehling, USA Today bestselling author of And There He Kept Her and A Long Time Gone
For fans of Dirt Creek and William Kent Kreuger comes a profound southern mystery from acclaimed author Lo Patrick. When her granddaughter is accused of murder, a woman must confront the buried secrets of a summer long past--because she can try to forget, but the Georgia land remembers.
Meg Gregory never wanted to return to Tuskin, the small Georgia town she grew up in, as barren as the fields that surround it. But after her divorce left her wounded, she knew she had to quit running. Now, years later, as Meg watches her daughter and granddaughter navigate familiar dirt roads, Meg is bent on hiding from the memories that haunt her. Because she skipped town for a reason, and that reason runs deep.
But when Meg's unassuming granddaughter Lucy is suddenly charged with the murder of her boyfriend, everything changes. Meg knows Lucy couldn't have done it. Killing a boy will break a girl like that. She should know. She's seen it happen before.
As Meg fights for Lucy's innocence, memories from the past threaten to break free, and she's left to contemplate a different murder, a different dead boy, a different summer under the hot Georgia sun. And soon enough Meg isn't quite sure what is memory and who, in all of this, is innocent.
A moving rumination on memory, legacy, trauma, and small-town tension, The Sins of Summer Daughters is a masterclass in mystery paired seamlessly with an intimate character study you won't soon forget.
About the Author :
LO PATRICK is a former lawyer and current novelist living in the suburbs of Atlanta. Her debut, The Floating Girls, earned a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, was a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and was a Reader's Digest Editor's Pick.
Review :
"Patrick's latest recounts how the circumstances of our childhoods may never leave us...Thick with setting, this will appeal to readers of Kelly Mustian and Donna Everhart." -- Booklist
"Engrossing...Humid atmosphere ("The ducks had come over a few times for the cereal, but even they were bored from the sun") and emotional acuity enhance Patrick's well-honed suspense en route to a quietly powerful conclusion. This delivers the goods." -- Publishers Weekly
"A new Lo Patrick book is cause for celebration. In The Sins of Summer Daughters, four generations of women struggle with life in a small southern town where the heat and lack of options are oppressive and snakes hide in the tall grass. Patrick's writing sparks with stunning observations and a flammable wit. I'm a huge fan." -- Joshua Moehling, USA Today bestselling author of And There He Kept Her and A Long Time Gone
"Joshilyn Jackson meets the Coen brothers in this searing, Southern, soul-cracking mystery. How a novel can be written with such gravity and humor at the same time is astounding and so rarely done well, but Patrick does it with the ease and grace of a Southern summer evening. The Sins of Summer Daughters is nothing short of a work of literary witchcraft." -- Emily Carpenter, author of Gothictown
"The Sins of Summer Daughters, Lo Patrick's latest moody, propulsive mystery, will keep readers guessing and turning pages until the final shocking scene. A grisly murder in present-day Georgia causes narrator Meg Gregory to reckon with long-buried secrets from her own disturbing childhood in the 1970s. The story alternates between past and present, with Meg racing to protect those she loves most from ghosts--real or imagined--from the terrifying past." -- Lauren K. Denton, USA Today bestselling author of The Hideaway and A Place to Land
