What Lies in the River

Punta Gorda, Florida. Summer, 1926.Three weeks after her young daughter is found murdered along the riverbank, Grace Hanley is trying to remember how life continues.Her husband Nicholas has taken leave from work and spends his days resting at home while the town turns its attention toward the upcoming trial of Caleb Whitcomb, the serviceman accused of the crime.Meals are delivered. Church resumes. Afternoon storms roll in from the Gulf and disappear as quickly as they arrive.People expect healing to look a certain way.But grief has strange habits.Some mornings Grace wakes believing she hears Charlotte's footsteps in the hallway. Some afternoons she catches herself watching strangers too closely. And some nights, with her Bible open in her lap and summer pressing against the windows, she becomes less certain that evil ends once it is caught.As the trial draws near and the river refuses to give up its secrets, Grace must decide what she believes about sin, memory, and the stories people tell themselves in order to survive.