One forty-year-old unsolved murder.
Two sisters, uncovering their mother's hidden past.
Three girls, trapped in a shipping container.
Bracketed by abuse and betrayal, the past collides with the present near an abandoned village the locals call Grabtown.
When estranged twins Cassie and Ana return to their childhood home outside a small mill town in rural Connecticut's Quiet Corner, they discover an unpublished novel among their deceased mother's belongings. It's a murder mystery, written by their mom's girlfriend AJ and featuring their mother as a key character. As the twins uncover the secrets of AJ's story, they also unearth a disturbing trail of abuse and manipulation. Who really was their mother? Is the story fiction, or a confession?
When Cassie's volatile husband tells them to stop digging and a retired detective arrives with new questions, they realize someone believes AJ's story is true. And they'll do anything to keep their secrets. What happened in Grabtown four decades ago? And why is someone now desperately trying to silence the truth?
Grabtown is a multigenerational story of courage and unshakable loyalty in a world where simply being young and vulnerable can destroy your life.
Autorentext
In her fiction, Sarah P. Blanchard writes about conflicted people making difficult decisions in impossible situations, sometimes with positive outcomes. She's especially drawn to flawed, compassionate characters who believe they must battle their demons alone and complex antagonists who feel they have nothing to lose. New England-born and raised, Sarah earned her B.A. in English literature from the University of Connecticut and an M.B.A. from Nichols College in Massachusetts. She taught at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, Hawaii Community College, and UNC-Asheville's OLLI Program. She is a 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee; a winner of the National League of American Pen Women's Dorothy Daniels Fiction Award; and a finalist for the 2024 Porch Prize for short fiction and the 2021 Doris Betts Fiction Prize. After many years living away from New England, Sarah and her husband have returned home to northeastern Connecticut.