Seven for a secret

A young woman returns to the Maryland island town where she once lived in Sister's Place, a group home from which many of her friends vanished. Seventeen-year-old Nev, who's cued white, was 12 when she was sent away from Avan Island to another group foster home that also failed her. After she finds the dead body of Charles Aisley--Sister's Place board member, detective, and church elder--drowned in the Patuxent River, she feels pulled to return to Avan Island to unwind the mystery of what happened to the neglected girls people claimed had simply run away. Interspersed with newspaper articles and an eerie collective perspective in chapters titled "Sisters," Nev's first-person voice burns with determination and a piercing rage toward those she knows harmed her friends. She feels a welcome kinship with journalist Roan, a young white-presenting woman who also lived at Sister's Place, and with Roan's boyfriend, Merrick, who reads Black, as well as with the diverse group of former residents who soon come forward. Just as quickly, bodies begin piling up around them. Roach carefully draws out the suspense, and her strong pacing allows the details fall into place, pulling readers into this story of vulnerable young women and the impact on their lives of powerful men with status in their community. A grimly atmospheric and unsettling mystery. (content warnings)(Mystery. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.