The Missing One — Lucy Atkins

A Captivating Debut Novel About a Young Mother's Quest to Understand Her Family's Dark Past

When Kal McKenzie's mom Elena dies of cancer, Kal and her sister are at a loss about how to mourn a parent whose lifelong coldness and distance shaped their troubled relationships. It is particularly difficult for Kal, who as a parent with a toddler of her own can't begin to understand how a mother could show so little love toward her children.

As Kal is searching her mother's painting studio for clues to the past, she discovers a collection of postcards from a mysterious Canadian gallery owner, each sent on the same day of the year and each with the same sentiment: "Thinking of you." With Kal already in a state of crisis following the discovery that her husband is cheating on her, this key to her mother's story, and her own, sends her on an impulsive quest of discovery that takes her to the wild landscapes of British Columbia. What she discovers in the rugged and beautiful waters of the Pacific Northwest will change her life, and the life of her family, irrevocably.

Told in alternating narratives that shine a light on Elena's life as a marine biologist, activist, and mother in 1970s California and on Kars dangerous search for deeply buried secrets about her family's past, this gripping debut novel wrestles with thorny questions of personal identity even as it delivers a thrilling, white-knuckle journey into the darkest corners of the human psyche.