Chloe Cates Is Missing

November 1, 2021
McHugh's debut tackles an age-old question: What's a mother to do when her daughter, who's been the star of her obsessively curated mommy vlog for nearly 10 years, disappears? Thirteen-year-old Chloe Cates, whom the offline world knows as Abigail Scarborough, is the creation of Jennifer Cates, nee Jen Groff, whose online production of "CC and Me," nourished by commercial tie-ins and Jennifer's boundless appetite for grooming her daughter for stardom, has finally been generating enough income to surpass Jackson Scarborough's salary as associate director of his Albany firm's marketing team. Even before she vanishes from her bedroom one night, leaving her window open and her cellphone behind, Chloe's carefully fictionalized life has been built on papering over her constant resentment of the stage mother from hell. And that's not the only tension that bubbles beneath the domestic surface. Chloe's older brother, JJ, has set her up with her own social media accounts as Abigail. Abby's met a boy online who knows nothing of her avatar. Jackson has skeletons in his own closet. Even Emilina Stone, the police detective assigned to the case, is the last person in the world Jennifer wants to see because the two of them share knowledge of a guilty secret that goes back to their own school days, gradually revealed in an obligatory series of flashbacks. McHugh manages this tangle of subplots with practiced efficiency, quickening the pace of dramatic, if not exactly surprising, revelations till the final pages. Never remotely plausible or even original, but a tale guaranteed to keep genre fans up till dawn.

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November 22, 2021
McHugh’s gripping debut focuses on Jennifer Scarborough, who has been grooming her daughter, Abby, for media stardom for nearly 10 years. Since Abby was four, she has been photographed, videoed, and packaged under the name Chloe Cates in Jennifer’s popular blog, CC and Me. Jennifer, who cherishes her identity as a blogger and entrepreneur, won’t let anyone stand in the way of her dreams for her daughter—not even the girl herself. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Abby writes in her journal: “Everybody knows CC Spectacular, but Abby Scarborough doesn’t exist, not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat—nowhere that counts... Who cares about me when Chloe is the star?” Chloe’s subsequent disappearance is national news, and the internet is fueled with viral hashtags like #CatchChloeCates trending on every major platform. Emilina Stone, the detective with the Children and Family Services Unit in Albany, N.Y., who’s assigned the case, declines to reveal to her superiors that she and Jennifer were childhood friends. Chapters told from multiple perspectives skillfully tease out the characters’ respective secrets to reveal the rage lurking beneath their smiling faces. McHugh is off to a strong start. Agent: Anne Tibbets, Donald Maass Literary.

January 1, 2022
Abigail Scarborough is missing, and her family is concerned. But when word gets out on the web that Chloe Cates is missing, everyone is upset. The two 13-year-olds are actually the same person. Abigail has no life to call her own, but Chloe is the star of the hit online series CC and Me. She is nothing but a "brand." The story unravels, as do the lives of everyone involved, in multiple, angst-ridden voices and poignant diary entries. The highly dysfunctional Scarborough family takes center stage, and Abigail's manipulative mother is revealed as an absolute monster. Her ambition knows no bounds. "Chloe could be the next JoJo Siwa if we play our cards right." Complicating the situation is the fact that she and the detective assigned the case, Emilina Stone, both share a horrific secret. Once a mean girl, always a mean girl? This is a promising debut on a timely topic that might seem unbelievable save the recent headlines about the struggles of Britney Spears and the never-ending list of child stars and their misfortunes.

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