Hurry Home
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Initial publish date
- Jul 2020
- Category
- Psychological, Domestic, Suspense
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781501184826
- Publish Date
- Jul 2020
- List Price
- $24.99
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781501184833
- Publish Date
- Jul 2020
- List Price
- $7.92 USD
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
From the bestselling author of Our Little Secret comes a suspenseful new thriller featuring two estranged sisters desperate to keep their deepest and darkest secret where it belongs—in the past.
When I open the door, I see a face more than anything, the paleness of it stark against the dark hair. Long hair, familiar. Blue, damaged eyes. Immediately, I feel my knees might give out, like I might fall to the ground. I cover my mouth with both hands and stare.
It’s her. It’s Ruth Van Ness. My sister.
Alexandra Van Ness has the perfect life. She lives in an idyllic resort town tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, shares a designer loft with her handsome boyfriend, Chase, and has her dream job working in child protection. Every day, Alex goes above and beyond to save children at risk.
But when her long-lost sister, Ruth, unexpectedly shows up at her door asking for help, Alex’s perfect life is upended. Growing up, Ruth was always the troublemaker, pulling Alex into her messes, and this time will be no different. Their relationship is fraught with hurts and regrets from their childhood that bind them to silence, but they can’t outrun them forever.
Alex lets Ruth stay under one condition: we will never, ever, talk about the past. But when a local child is in danger, Alex becomes very involved and the secrets from long ago come back to haunt her with terrible consequences for everyone.
A gripping look at the inescapable bond between sisters—and the devastating cost of a single mistake—Hurry Home will keep readers guessing who is telling the truth and who is lying until the very last page.
About the author
Roz Nay’s debut novel, Our Little Secret, was a national bestseller, won the Douglas Kennedy Prize for best foreign thriller in France, and was nominated for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Mystery and the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel Award. Roz has lived and worked in Africa, Australia, the US, and the UK. She now lives in British Columbia, Canada, with her husband and two children. Look for her latest thriller, Hurry Home, in stores July 2020. Visit her at RozNay.com or connect with her on Twitter @RozNay1 and Instagram @RozNay.
Excerpt: Hurry Home (by (author) Roz Nay)
Prologue
The woman holds the baby close and ghost-dances by the window. She can see her reflection in the glass. She doesn’t mind being awake with her little boy at this odd, witchy hour when everyone else is asleep. This moment is a secret that only they share.
He is olive-skinned, familiar—although a far cry from her own pale coloring. It doesn’t matter, she thinks. He’s mine, and I’m keeping him.
Outside, the street is quiet. The mountains in the distance watch over the sleeping town. She concentrates on the cowrie-shell curl of his hand. His fingernails are tiny and perfect, little crescent moons in each one. Did she make those? In one of his hands is a worn old clothespin that he’s been gripping for days.
A dog’s bark pierces the silence, and the baby startles and throws out his arms.
How powerful babies are, she thinks. How vulnerable. She lifts her shirt and juggles him until he finds her breast. They fit perfectly together; they’re made for each other.
A few moments later, the baby unlatches, frustrated, and she prods at his lips, her brow darkening. “I’m sorry,” she says to him. “Shhhh.” He doesn’t even try to latch again. Instead, he fusses and turns his head away.
“Hey,” she says, her voice louder. “It’s just us now. You’ll never see her again.”
The baby blinks, working up to a cry, and they stare at each other for a second, old souls reconnected, like there was never any loss before and nothing ever went wrong.
“You’re okay, little one, you’re safe now. There, that’s better.”
In a minute she’ll fetch him formula from the fridge, warm it up, test the temperature of it against the tender flesh of her inner arm. She knows how to do all of this. She’s a natural. Finally everything is exactly as it should be.
Editorial Reviews
“A taut, beautifully written story of sisters, motherhood, and the kind of secrets that turn a person into a monster. You won’t know who to trust in this sinister tale of childhood gone wrong. I devoured it.”
— ROBYN HARDING, #1 bestselling author of The Swap
“Hurry Home is about sisters and secrets. It’s a twisty, gripping read with heart.”
— KAIRA ROUDA, international and USA Today bestselling author of Best Day Ever and The Favorite Daughter
“A powder keg of a story! Seething and simmering with secrets—until it explodes with the shocking truth. The amazing Roz Nay grabs your emotions and twists your expectations in her haunting and unforgettable thriller. Hurry Home is disturbing and sinister—and then, devastating. Wow.”
— HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN, bestselling author of The Murder List
“Hurry Home is a fascinating character study where we’re never entirely certain who we’re supposed to be rooting for, taking us inside the lives of women struggling to shed past mistakes and start new lives while hiding from a growing tide of danger. A gripping exploration of how the darkness of the past can come to find us in the present, no matter how hard we try to run from it. Hurry Home is fascinating and gripping with gloriously realized characters.”
— WENDY HEARD, author The Kill Club
“I zipped through this page-turner in record time. I read it while folding laundry, cooking, and blow drying my hair. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next in this twisty tale of sisterly betrayal. Good luck to you if you need to get anything done while reading this exciting book!”
— LAURIE PETROU, author of Sister of Mine and Love, Heather
“In Roz Nay’s twisty Hurry Home, nothing—and no one—is what it seems. Part nuanced exploration of how tragedy can shatter a family and part nail-biting psychological thriller, this book will keep you guessing until the end!”
— KATHLEEN BARBER, author of Truth Be Told
“A chilling, sharply-written, and hard to put down book that explores the true weight of our past mistakes and secrets and the primal connection of sisterhood. A propulsive and can’t-miss novel that will have you speeding through until you reach its jaw-dropping conclusion. This one will be sticking with me for a while.”
— ALEX SEGURA, acclaimed author of Blackout and Dangerous Ends
“Roz Nay’s remarkable storytelling is only matched by her astonishing ability to make readers care deeply about her flawed, very real characters. In Hurry Home, Nay weaves a taut, stunning, suspenseful, gripping tale about two sisters forever connected through their lies and losses. Captivating and brilliant twists and turns, expert plotting and pacing, and an emotional, incredibly satisfying ending—it’s a must-read page turner.”
— SAMANTHA M. BAILEY, #1 bestselling author of Woman on the Edge
“An insidious web of love, loss, and lies, Hurry Home perfectly captures the fallout of tragedy. Gorgeously written with hairpin twists and turns, Roz Nay’s elevated second outing proves that she just gets better with each book.”
— CHEVY STEVENS, New York Times bestselling author of Never Let You Go
“Hurry Home is everything you want in a psychological thriller: diabolical, venomous, and relentlessly entertaining. An absorbing, sinister read with an ending so shocking it will turn your emotions inside out and have you begging for more. I loved every twisted page.”
— JENNIFER HILLIER, award-winning author of Jar of Hearts and Little Secrets
“In Hurry Home, Roz Nay manages to tug on your heartstrings while spinning a harrowing plot filled with hairpin twists. A close examination of a toxic sister relationship mixed with taut psychological suspense make for a one-sitting read, and Nay delivers the sought after shocking end in a big way.”
— KATE MORETTI, New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year
PRAISE FOR HURRY HOME
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“DYNAMITE. Told in alternative POVs of two sisters, Alex and Ruth, this was a well-executed family drama and the best I have read in a long time. The ability to take a family drama storyline and turn it into a stick of dynamite is sheer talent and that is exactly what Roz Nay has accomplished in her second book, Hurry Home. The story was executed perfectly and the characters well-developed.”
— Neighbours of Olde Oakville
“If you love dark, compelling thrillers, Roz Nay’s Hurry Home should be at the top of your to-be-read list. Through sisters Alex and Ruth, Nay expertly delves into the complexities of shared histories, grief, and family loyalties. Roz Nay delivers an enthralling tale full of twists and turns that will leave you breathless and asking, ‘What just happened?’”
— HEATHER GUDENKAUF, New York Times bestselling author of The Weight of Silence
“When two sisters are reunited after a horrific family tragedy, each with a different version of the events that drove them apart, the line between truth and fiction begins to vanish. Pitch-perfect and flawlessly constructed, Hurry Home is never what it seems, telling a new story with each turn of the page. A breath-stealing, edge-of-your seat thriller!”
— WENDY WALKER, national bestselling author of The Night Before
“A brilliant cat-and-mouse game.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“Hurry Home makes for a perfect summer read.”
— Vancouver Sun
“In Hurry Home, Roz Nay expertly creates real and deeply flawed characters who pull you in and hold you close, only to make you question and shift your allegiances as the story unfolds. This tale about two sisters who love—and love to hate—is as dark as it is twisty, emotional, and suspenseful. It’s one that should be at the top of your ‘to read’ list right now.”
— HANNAH MARY MCKINNON, bestselling author of Sister Dear
“Compelling and unsettling, Hurry Home is a twisted tale of sisterhood and deftly explores how we may be done with the past, but it’s almost never done torturing us.”
— VANESSA LILLIE, Amazon bestselling author of Little Voices