Amy Engel

"A spellbinding story of a mother with nothing left to lose who sets out on an all-consuming quest for justice after her daughter is murdered on the town playground. Sometimes the answers are worse than the questions. Sometimes it's better not to know. Set in the poorest part of the Missouri Ozarks, in a small-town with big secrets, The Familiar Dark opens with a murder in the town's playground. Eve Taggert, desperate with grief over losing her daughter, takes it upon herself to find out the truth about what happened. Eve is no stranger to the dark side of life, having been raised by a hard-edged mother whose lessons Eve tried not to pass on to her own daughter. But Eve may need her mother's cruel brand of strength if she's going to face the truth about her daughter's death and about her own true nature. Her quest for justice takes her from the dark underbelly of town, to the woods, and most frighteningly, back to her mother's trailer, for a final lesson. The Familiar Dark is a story about the bonds of family--women doing the best they can for their daughters in dire circumstances--as well as a story about how even the darkest and most frightening of places can provide the comfort of home"--