An innocent night of fun takes a shocking turn ...

When a group of neighborhood women gathers, wine in hand, around a fire pit where their backyards meet one Saturday night, most of them are just ecstatic to have discovered that their baby monitors reach that far. It’s a rare kid-free night, and they’re giddy with it. They drink too much, and the conversation turns personal.

By Monday morning, one of them is gone.

Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs, but no one can make sense of the disappearance. Kristin was a sociable twin mom, college administrator, and doctor’s wife who didn’t seem all that bothered by her impending divorce—and the investigation turns up more questions than answers, with her husband, Paul, at the center. For her closest neighbor, Clara, the incident triggers memories she thought she’d put behind her—and when she’s unable to extract herself from the widening circle of scrutiny, her own suspicions quickly grow. But the neighborhood’s newest addition, Izzy, is determined not to jump to any conclusions—especially since she’s dealing with a crisis of her own.

As the police investigation goes from a media circus to a cold case, the neighbors are forced to reexamine what’s going on behind their own closed doors—and to ask how well anyone *really* knows anyone else.

While this book has all the great plot twists of an edge-of-your-seat thriller, what I really enjoyed was the way it develops a group of characters that I came to really care for. This is a character-driven story about the women in a suburb—mothers, loners, and one cheeky 11-year-old—left to confront a mystery that rocks their community.

After a night of kid-free wine-drinking around a backyard fire pit, the ladies of Yellow Springs wake to find that one of their number is missing. Kristin, a soon-to-be-divorcée and mother of twins, has vanished with her children. Immediately, the neighborhood gossip machine kicks into overdrive. Is she alive or dead? Did she skip town or was she taken? And is anyone else in danger? As the women seek answers while also managing their own households, they find strength in each other.

I was quickly sucked into this fast-paced, wild ride. I found the characters relatable and, although some make infuriating choices, I felt I understood them. The story of a tight-knit, small community with a dark side, it also sheds light on domestic violence, sisterhood, and the importance of speaking up.