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Laura McHugh

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LAURA MCHUGH's short fiction has been published in Confrontation and Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley. She lives in Missouri, and this is her first novel.

Books by Laura McHugh

Safe and Sound

In a town no one ever leaves, there are only so many places to hide.

As kids, Amelia and Kylee were found unharmed in their upstairs bedroom the night their teenage cousin Grace, who was babysitting them, vanished from the farmhouse in Beaumont, Missouri, leaving only a smear of blood on a door. Scrappy and driven, Grace had been on the verge of escaping their dead-end town, the first in their family to go to college instead of getting married and going to work at the meatpacking plant. Her disappearance is a warning to any local girl who dared hope for better. 

Now, as their own high school graduation looms, Amelia and Kylee dream about getting out of Beaumont, but the likelihood of that happening seems as low as that of Grace being found. When human remains are discovered in town, the sisters think they finally know who took Grace—but as they dig deeper into her past, they unearth long-buried secrets and a growing list of suspects. 

Amelia and Kylee vow to find Grace, dead or alive. But as they draw closer to the truth and slip deeper into danger, they question how far someone would go to put a woman in her place, or to cover up a crime. The answer is worse than they could have imagined, and in the end, it won’t just be Grace they’re trying to save—they’ll have to fight for their lives.

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Arrowood

Family lies, buried secrets and a terrifying search for the truth lie at the heart of this chilling, atmospheric crime novel. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins.

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The Weight of Blood

A gripping debut psychological crime novel about family lies and dark secrets in an isolated community as a series of women go missing. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn's novels, as well as fans of the TV film series Top of the Lake and the film Winter's Bone.

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