27-year-old Daphne Barlow escapes her parents’ ruthless expectations as the heir to their Fortune 10 organic food brand and finds a different kind of ruthlessness—the remote town of Sierra Ridge in the inhospitable Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California.

Daphne seeks out an idyllic Mayberry existence in a small town where residents might appreciate her personal brand of homeopathic techniques and herbal cures. When her favorite client—John Sharpe, an army veteran in his 70s—goes missing and no one in the town seems to care, Daphne is deeply concerned. He saved her life once and she is bound and determined to return the favor.

Pitting herself against the townspeople, who assure her that Sharpe is just on a bender despite all the evidence she finds to the contrary, Daphne is drawn deeper and deeper into trouble, all while a wildfire rages closer and closer to the town.

My Review

I loved this and I seemed to be in the minority in my book club, because I rather liked Daphne. She’s a naive, overprivileged, white, middle class, idealistic idiot in her late twenties, who wants the world to be all sweetness and light. A bit like me at her age (apart from the wealthy parents). I can relate and I’m still idealistic.

Unfortunately life isn’t like that. So when she escapes her domineering ‘parents’ ruthless expectations as the heir to their Fortune 10 organic food brand’, she hopes to find peace and tranquility in ‘the remote town of Sierra Ridge in the inhospitable Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California’. But Sierra Ridge opens up a whole new level of ruthlessness to poor Daphne.

She has set herself up as a homeopathic healer and while she has a few clients, most people are suspicious of her. Then her favourite client John Sharpe, a 70-year-old army veteran, goes missing. She is determined to seek out the truth. But no-one is interested, claiming he’s probably gone on a bender, and no-one seems to care, not even the police.

The whole town seems to be against her and soon she realises that it goes deeper than that. They are actively trying to prevent her from discovering the sinister truth, and all the while the wildfires are getting closer. The last part of the book was a race against time. It was heart-stopping. A five-star read for me.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the Author

Amanda Traylor writes deliciously twisted mysteries and thrillers and has published eighteen works of fiction. She holds Bachelor of Arts in English and Journalism and a Master of Arts in Mass Communication Research. Before writing fiction full time, she spent ten years in the corporate game, but tries not to think about that except when crafting tales of horror. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but now moves around the country like a nomad with her husband and toddler daughter. They currently call Colorado home where they live in a giant country house and begrudgingly battle snow.