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A tragedy brings a young boy into the home of a "perfect" family—one whose dark secrets begin closing in, until a horrifying moment changes everything.
Tommie Ware’s life is turned upside down the summer of 1958, just after his eleventh birthday. When his beloved aunt—the woman who raised him—doesn’t return after her shift as a night nurse and is later found murdered, there is only one place left for Tommie to go: “home” to the mother who handed him over the day he was born.
All is not as it seems behind the hedgerow surrounding the lavish Henneberry estate where Tommie’s mother, Esther, works as live-in housekeeper. Her employers have agreed he can stay until she “sorts things out,” but as she's at the family’s beck and call around the clock, Tommie is mostly left on his own to navigate the grounds, the massive house, and the twisted family inside.
Soon he is enmeshed in the oppressive attentions of matriarch Muriel, who is often heavily medicated, and of fifteen-year-old Martin, who treats Tommie sometimes like a kid brother, sometimes like a pawn in a confusing game. While Dr. Henneberry mostly ignores Tommie, he also seems eager for him to be gone. Then there’s the elderly neighbour, who may know more about the family's past than anyone else will say.
By summer's end, the secrets and games tighten around Tommie and his mother, until a horrific crime is discovered and we are faced with an unthinkable question: could an eleven-year-old boy really have committed cold-blooded murder?
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 12, 2022 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780735242685
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780735242685
- File size: 1650 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from April 1, 2022
Eleven-year-old Thomas Ware lives with his Aunt Celia. They don't have much money, but Thomas is happy. Celia's taken him in because his mother is a maid for the immensely wealthy Henneberrys, and Thomas isn't allowed to live with her. But after a terrible tragedy occurs, there's no choice but for Thomas to move in with his mother. He's already traumatized, but when he arrives at the Henneberrys, he finds life very different from what he expected. The Henneberry's teenage son, Martin, is a bully who thinks he can do whatever he wants because he's rich. Mrs. Henneberry places demands on Thomas that make him feel uneasy, and Dr. Henneberry completely ignores him. Only the next-door neighbor, Mrs Grimshaw, who has dementia, ever says a kind word to Thomas. Thomas' mother is too busy to notice that something is dreadfully wrong or that Thomas is feeling increasingly hopeless. When all three of the Henneberrys are shot, Thomas is accused of their deaths and put on trial. Despite the evidence against him, it's unclear, even to the reader, if Thomas is the killer. The ending is bizarre and surprising but completely satisfying. This is a superb read about helplessness, power, wealth, honesty, and truth--nightmarishly compelling.COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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