The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan

 

My thoughts

This is one book you don't want to miss. If you love a good edge of your seat thriller. A mystery to hold your interest from start to finish. If you love a good story that keeps you guessing. I loved this one. It is definitely in my top ten of the year. 

I listened to the audio and I am blown away at how good the narrator, Emily Pike Stewart, did. She made each character her own. The realistic voices were spot on perfection. I'll definitely listen to more by this narrator.

Three girls went missing. One was returned. What happened to these little girls? Who would do this? And why was one returned? When PI Annie Gore takes a job from a young man looking for his missing sister, she has no idea what she's in for. The girl has been missing ten years. Most likely she is never returning. Most likely she is dead. Annie took this job because Max Andrews was so persistent. He had saved so much to hire her. He had heard she was the best. The best at finding missing people. She could not say no. 

This book takes you to the Appalachian mountains. To a small town where everyone knows everyone. But there are a lot of secrets. A lot of things that are well hidden. And there are missing children. Two still missing after ten years. Can Annie find them and if she does will they be alive. 

Some of the people in this town help without blinking an eye while others want it to go away. Want it forgotten. But it can't be forgotten. Not by ones mother and by one brother. 

This book is so well written. It's writing it almost lyrical. The descriptions make you feel like you are there. In the cabin. In the bakery. In the mountains. In the woods. It's so realistic and haunting. It's filled with so much hope and a whole lot of sadness. You want Annie to find these two girls as much as their family does. Then another child goes missing. Was it the same person or a copycat? Will Annie be able to save this child too.

I'm telling all my friends who love a good thriller/mystery to grab this one. From what I can tell this is a debut and so beautifully written. It's not about witches. It's not magical realism. It's just a story about stories told. Told about a witch and her two beautiful daughters. A story of a town where three children went missing and one was returned....

Thank you #stmartinspress, #macmillianaudio, for this ARC. 

About

A ninth generation Appalachian herself, Archer Sullivan brings the mountains of North Carolina to life in The Witch’s Orchard, a wonderfully atmospheric novel that introduces private investigator Annie Gore.

Former Air Force Special Investigator Annie Gore joined the military right after high school to escape the fraught homelife of her childhood. Now, she’s getting by as a private investigator and her latest case takes her to an Appalachian holler not unlike the one where she grew up.

Ten years ago, three little girls went missing from their tiny mountain town. While one was returned, the others were never seen again. After all this time without answers, the brother of one of the girls wants to hire an outsider, and he wants Annie. While she may not be from his town, she gets mountain towns. Mountain people. Driving back into the hills for a case this old—it might be a fool’s errand. But Annie needs to put money in the bank and she can’t turn down a case. Not even one that dredges up her own painful past.

In the shadow of the Blue Ridge, Annie begins to track the truth, navigating a decade’s worth of secrets, folklore of witches and crows, and a whole town that prefers to forget. But while the case may have been buried, echoes of the past linger. And Annie’s arrival stirs someone into action.