Any of you city slickers who imagine small-town life is dull ought to read Laura Benedict’s suspenseful, sexy, and haunting debut novel, Isabella Moon, as this book set in Carystown, Kentucky, proves otherwise. It’s a page turner that is just as much about character as it is about plot. In fact, the characters are richly, artfully drawn with Benedict’s deft hand.

And just who is Isabella Moon? Well, she’s the missing girl who comes back to haunt the novel’s protagonist, Kate, and reveal her secret. But like pulling a thread–one secret revealed leads to another, until all of the town’s ugly skeletons are revealed and we learn once and for all that secrets are dangerous and that buried secrets don’t stay that way for long.

I was drawn to this book when I saw the spooky book trailer last year and I have to say it did not disappoint and many a night after I’d put the book down and shut out the light, I kept the covers pulled up tight under my chin.

If you like books that keep you guessing, that keep you on the edge of your seat, and that present you with believable, sympathetic characters, then this book is for you. Read it.