Half Moon Bay: A Novel

Alice LaPlante

Jul 2018 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

“An eerie, tense, and finely written novel…Readers will grip their chairs” (SFGate.com) as they try to unravel this tale of psychological suspense from the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of Turn of Mind.

Jane loses everything when her teenage daughter is killed in a senseless accident. Devastated, she manages to make one tiny stab at a new life: she moves from San Francisco to the seaside town of Half Moon Bay. Jane is inconsolable, and yet, as the months go by, she is able to cobble together some version of a job, of friends, of the possibility of peace.

And then, children begin to disappear. And soon, Jane sees her own pain reflected in all the parents in the town. She wonders if she will be able to live through the aching loss, the fear all around her. And as the disappearances continue, she begins to see that what her neighbors are wondering is if it is Jane herself who has unleashed the horror of loss.

Alice LaPlante’s “well-crafted novel of psychological suspense” is a chilling story about a mother haunted by her past, a “brooding suspense novel…dark, starkly beautiful…LaPlante uses a seductively dangerous landscape to mirror her heroine’s inner life” (Kirkus Reviews).

Ratings and reviews

When Jane's teenage daughter is killed, she is shattered. A year later she makes a move to put some kind of like together. She's done some things in the throes of her grief that she really doesn't want anyone to know, so this is a clean slate for her. She finds a job in a nursery growing exotic plants. She gets along well with her boss and then there's Adam, a man who would like to get closer to Jane. She also meets a couple, Alma and Edward, who become her close, close friends. But then a little girl goes missing, not found until days later.. wrapped in a blanket, clean, hair combed and with a bit of makeup. It about tears Jane apart, bringing back memories of her own daughter. And then a second girl disappears ... and yet a third. The community is turning into itself with fear and pain and Jane herself becomes a suspect. Is Jane taking these girls and killing them? She's the first to admit that she's haunted by her past ... but could she possibly be a monster and not know it? Highly suspenseful, well written, it kept me riveted to each and every page. It seemed as though everyone was a suspect at one point or another... no motive, no clues, no DNA for the girls' deaths. Jane's character bothered me. She was such a pushover and did things she was told/asked to do without thinking about the consequences. She comes across as grieving, but weak, as well. Alma and Edward are just strange. About the only normal one is Adam ... and I still had a question about him ... he kept popping up in places where Jane was. All in all, it was a good read. Many thanks to the author / Scribner Books / Edelweiss for the advanced copy of this psychological thriller. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

About the author

Alice LaPlante is an award-winning writer whose bestselling books include Half Moon Bay, A Circle of Wives, Method and Madness—The Making of a Story, and the New York Times bestseller Turn of Mind. She taught creative writing at Stanford University where she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow and in the MFA program at San Francisco State University. She lives with her family in Mallorca, Spain.