Description

A stubborn teenager and her estranged uncle descend into the Arkansas underworld to track down her missing fiancé, in a riveting literary noir perfect for fans of Daniel Woodrell and Mare of Easttown. Up until now, 18-year-old Lily Stevens has always been the perfect daughter of a Pentecostal preacher, but her insular Arkansas congregation is scandalized when Lily announces she's pregnant with the baby of Peter Cutchin, a young man in the church. When Peter disappears before they can get married, Lily's life is thrown into even greater turmoil. Everyone in their small town, including Peter's furious mother, thinks the boy has simply run off and abandoned her, but Lily, furiously headstrong and determined to find the father of her child, refuses to believe it. Help comes in the unlikely form of Allan Woodson, an uncle that her family will not acknowledge but a man who may know where to begin looking for Peter. Their search will lead them out of Lily's safe world of the church and into the darkest corners of the criminal underworld on the Arkansas/Tennessee border, where neither Allan nor Lily can foresee the unsettling secrets they will uncover.