Leisa Kugler

Told in the alternating voices of Vivi and her husband, Big Shep, along with Sidda, her siblings Little Shep, Lulu, Baylor, as well as the almost-but-not-quite family Cheney and Willetta, Wells embraces nearly 30 years of life on their plantation in Thornton, Louisiana, where the cloying air of the bayou and a web of family secrets at once shelters, traps, and defines an utterly original community of souls.

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold. Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they'll find....