Nothing Human Left : A Novel

When Grace reluctantly returns to her hometown to say goodbye to her terminally ill, incarcerated mother, memories stir of the night her mother was accused of murder, and Grace questions her claims of innocence. Reckoning with her spotty memory of the events, Grace must get to the bottom of what really happened that fateful night in this gritty thriller for fans of Just Like Home and Insomnia.

"I kept you out of danger, Gracie. I always protected you. Always."

Grace was thirteen when her mother was convicted of killing her friends in their isolated Pennsylvania farmhouse. Stoic and remorseless, Margerie pled guilty, claiming the killings were to protect Grace, and that the young victims were not girls at all, but imposters wearing "People Faces" –a constant refrain that Grace heard from her mother at the height of Margerie''s mental illness.

Twenty years later, Grace is a dedicated social worker, juggling a professional disaster and a demoralizing break-up. When she gets a call that Margerie has been granted compassionate release from prison to live out her final days in hospice, Grace reluctantly returns to the claustrophobic coal mining town of Fallen Rock to say her farewells.

But Grace is blindsided that Margerie now claims to be innocent. Beginning to doubt her own long-held convictions, Grace hesitantly reconnects with the other players from the night of the murders. But how can she trust the memories of anyone else if she no longer can trust herself?