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Release date: September 4, 2018

Publisher: Atria

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

There is a place in Minnesota with hundreds of miles of glacial lakes and untouched forests called the Boundary Waters. Ten years ago a man and his son trekked into this wilderness and never returned.

Search teams found their campsite ravaged by what looked like a bear. They were presumed dead until a decade later…the son appeared. Discovered while ransacking an outfitter store, he was violent and uncommunicative and sent to a psychiatric facility. Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist, is charged with making a connection with their high-profile patient. No matter how she tries, however, he refuses to answer questions about his father or the last ten years of his life

But Maya, who was abandoned by her own mother, has secrets, too. And as she’s drawn closer to this enigmatic boy who is no longer a boy, she’ll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world.

Review:

I was a huge fan of Mejia’s debut and have been impatiently waiting for her next book since late 2016, but man was the wait worth it! This was totally different from Everything You Want Me to Be, I love when authors switch things up and avoid getting caught in a formulaic cycle and Mejia surely does that here. It’s every bit as compelling as EYWMTB but in a totally different way that excited me.

This is mainly told from Maya’s point of view and she’s not your average mystery protagonist. She’s a speech pathologist who works at a psychiatric facility and I so enjoyed her unique viewpoint. One can only read so many thrillers with a detective as the lead and Maya was a breathe of fresh air. There are a few very imperative chapters from Josiah, the man who disappeared ten years ago that add an additional layer to an already multilayered story.

The atmosphere played such a huge role in this one and that’s the biggest difference (to me) from Mejia’s last book. The Boundary Waters were a character all of it’s own thanks to her incredibly vivid writing style, she brought this hauntingly beautiful and terrifying place to life effortlessly to the point where I felt like I was there alongside her characters. Besides a fantastic setting the characters themselves were complicated people with fascinating backstories, the type you find yourself rooting for even when you’re not entirely really sure if you should be. They’re flawed, intense and wonderfully interesting making for a captivating read.

Once again, Mejia had quite a few tricks up her sleeve and she definitely sucker punched me at least one time. I raced through this one as there were way more questions than answers and when all my questions were answered in the end, I was satisfied and extremely impressed by her talent and ability to construct a story. Hugely recommended by me, especially for fans of Force of Nature I had very similar feelings while reading this one and predict fans would enjoy this one as well.

Leave No Trace in three words: Atmospheric, Intense and Multifaceted.

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the author for my review copy.