Book summary

The catastrophe at the heart of YEAR OF FOG takes place before the first page: Abby goes on a walk on a fog-drenched California beach with her fiancé's daughter Emma. She pauses to take a picture of a dead seal pup and when she is finished, Emma has vanished. The repercussions of this mysterious vanishing, as subtly yet wrenchingly depicted by Michelle Richmond, are both deep and terrible in the lives of both Abby and her fiancé, Jake. He turns to activities, religion, and a sense of closure, while Abby becomes isolated, stops eating, and spends increasing hours on the beach, searching for answers in the fog. Was Emma kidnapped? Did she drown? In a unexpected turn near the climax of the novel, Abby meets a drifting surfer girl, and follows her to Costa Rica, searching for answers about Emma's fate, and for a sense of peace from her devastating and shadowy memories.

Media reviews

"In this spare page-turner, Richmond (DREAM OF THE BLUE ROOM ) draws complex tensions from the setup of a child gone missing....The book is beautifully paced...[and its] twist on missing child stories is wholly effective."