Books
The Nowhere Child

by Christian White
Minotaur Books, January 2019, $26.99

Kimberly Leamy teaches photography three nights a week at a community college in Melbourne, Australia. One night between classes a man approaches her and shows her a photo of a young girl around two years of age. He tells her the girl’s name is Sammy Went and that she disappeared from her home in Manson, Kentucky, 28 years before. Then he drops a bombshell: he thinks Kim is Sammy Went. She doesn’t believe him. As far as she knows, she’s lived her entire life in Melbourne with her mother and stepfather. And she can’t believe her loving mother, whom she lost four years previously, would be involved in an international kidnapping incident. But when she compares the picture the stranger has to pictures taken by her Australian parents at the same age, there is no denying she is that little lost girl.

Thus begins her quest for the truth. She flies to Kentucky, and delves into her forgotten past. The people of Manson had long ago accepted that little Sammy Went was dead.

The large Pentecostal fundamentalist church at the center of the small town, the cult-like Church of the Light Within, is run by a charismatic leader who believes that God will protect his pious congregants from the snakes they handle. Kim is stunned to learn that her biological mother, Molly, had been one of its most fervent practitioners. As she takes to the road to reunite with scattered family members, more and more of her and the town’s secrets are revealed, and when Kim discovers the truth of her abduction, she realizes her life may be in danger even now.

Written in alternating then-and-now chapters, readers are led through each shocking revelation until reaching a tense climax they will not see coming. This excellent thriller by Christian White marks a noteworthy new voice on the rise.

Sharon Magee
Teri Duerr
6393
White
January 2019
the-nowhere-child
26.99
Minotaur Books