The False Friend

From the bestselling author of Bee Seasoncomes an astonishingly complex psychological drama with a simple setup: two eleven-year-old girls, best friends and fierce rivals, go into the woods. Only one comes out . . . Leaders of a mercurial clique of girls, Celia and Djuna reigned mercilessly over their three followers. One after#xAD;noon, they decided to walk home along a forbidden road. Djuna disappeared, and for twenty years Celia blocked out how it happened. The lie Celia told to conceal her misdeed became the accepted truth: everyone assumed Djuna had been abducted, though neither she nor her abductor was ever found. Celia#x19;s unconscious avoidance of this has meant that while she and her longtime boyfriend, Huck, are professionally successful, they#x19;ve been unable to move forward, their relationship falling into a rut that threatens to bury them both. Celia returns to her hometown to confess the truth, but her family and childhood friends don#x19;t believe her. Huck wants to be supportive, but his love can#x19;t blind him to all that contra#xAD;dicts Celia#x19;s version of the past. Celia#x19;s desperate search to understand what happened to Djuna has powerful consequences. A deeply resonant and emotionally charged story, The False Friendexplores the adults that children become-leading us to question the truths that we accept or reject, as well as the lies to which we succumb. From the Hardcover edition.