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When Jessica Michaud, Billy Stevens' ex-girlfriend, returns to town to escape an abusive relationship and care for her ailing mother, he's forced to revisit painful memories of an intentional football injury engineered by Dustin Fields, his former best friend. Billy was left high and dry when his sports scholarship was ripped away by the intentional injury that was socially engineered by the toxic football star's wealthy father to appear as an unfortunate accident. Jessica Michaud, Billy's high school girlfriend, encourages Billy to seek greener pastures with her in New York City, but he refuses the opportunity, and Jessica is quick to discard the moody young man.
Meanwhile, Stacey Brenner, Dustin's girlfriend, whom Billy had sought to protect before his injury, has lived in a downward spiral from the fallout of her assault by Dustin at a drug and alcohol-fueled high school party. The drama now surrounding Jessica's life, like the impending storm, is on a collision course with Augusta and about to deliver more destruction to friends, family, and frenemies alike than she ever thought possible. If not for the relentless prodding by Billy's friend, investigative reporter Andrea Kearney, some startling things bubbling beneath the small town's surface might never be revealed.
From the sparks and ashes of high school sports and romances, small-town secrets converge with a historic storm brewing in Augusta, Maine, in this engaging novel. As the threatening weather builds to a climax, so too does the narrative, as tensions crescendo in the lives of young adults forced to reflect on the high school relationships whose consequences continue to surface five years later. Author Becker reworks familiar American experiences, characters, and relationships in freshly conceived ways to surprise readers in this tightly written, complexly plotted suspense thriller.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review