The Last of the Moon Girls
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Published by: Lake Union Publishing
Release Date: August 1, 2020
Pages: 399
ISBN13: 978-1542006491
Synopsis
Lizzy Moon never wanted Moon Girl Farm. Eight years ago, she left the land that nine generations of gifted healers had tended, determined to distance herself from the whispers about her family’s strange legacy. But when her beloved grandmother Althea dies, Lizzy must return and face the tragedy still hanging over the farm’s withered lavender fields: the unsolved murders of two young girls, and the cruel accusations that followed Althea to her grave.
Lizzy wants nothing more than to sell the farm and return to her life in New York, until she discovers a journal Althea left for her—a Book of Remembrances meant to help Lizzy embrace her own special gifts. When she reconnects with Andrew Greyson, one of the few in town who believed in Althea’s innocence, she resolves to clear her grandmother’s name.
But to do so, she’ll have to decide if she can accept her legacy and whether to follow in the footsteps of all the Moon women who came before her.
Add on GoodreadsPraise
“The Last of the Moon Girls is an enchanting tale of letting go and finding forgiveness. A five-star must read.”
- Bee Lee Crosby, bestselling author of Emily Gone
“Woven through the compelling mystery and suspense that keep the pages of The Last of the Moon Girls turning is a story of a powerful family legacy and the discovery of the best kind of magic—that of embracing our own gifts and finding our place in the world. A glorious, shimmering read that resonated in my soul long after I finished reading.”
- Kerry Anne King, bestselling author of Everything You Are
“The Last of the Moon Girls is reminiscent of two of my all-time favorites, Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic, because it's witchy, full of plant magic, and painfully human.”
- Kristen Fields, bestselling author of Lily in the Light
“The Last of the Moon Girls is a fantastic blend of mystery and magic, with the perfect dash of romance… a story of family and forgiveness and what it truly means to come home. From the first page to the last, I was riveted by the fascinating, heartbreaking story of the many generations of Moon girls - and, like all the best novels, I was sad when I turned the last page."
- Jane Healey, bestselling author of The Beantown Girls
“Davis uses a fine brush to draw complex, colorful characters, including a fiercely independent protagonist whose greatest obstacle is her own self-limiting beliefs. Stepped in equal parts magical realism and beguiling mystery, The Last of the Moon Girls is a captivating story that will leave you under its luminous spell long after you turn the last page.”
- Eldonna Edwards, award winning author of This I Know and Clover Blue
Excerpt
Prologue
A body that’s been submerged in water undergoes a different kind of decomposition; harsher in some ways, kinder in other’s—or so I’ve been told. We Moons wouldn’t know about that. We choose fire when our time comes, and scatter our ashes on land that has been in our family for more than two centuries. Mine are there now too, mingled with the dust of my ancestors.
Can it really only be weeks that I’ve been gone? Weeks hovering between worlds, unable to stay, unwilling to go, tethered by regret and unfinished business. The separation feels longer, somehow. And yet, it is not my death I dwell on today, but the deaths of two young girls—Darcy and Heather Gilman—nearly eight years ago now. They’d been missing nearly three weeks when their bodies were finally pulled from the water. It was a ghastly thing to watch, but watch I did. They were dragging my pond, you see, convinced they would find what they were looking for. And why not, when the whole town was looking in my direction? Because of who I was—and what I was. Or at least what they imagined me to be.
Memory, it seems, does not die along with the body. It’s been years since that terrible day at the pond, and yet I remember every detail, replaying again and again, an endless, merciless loop. The police chief in his waders, his men with their boat. The M.E.’s van looming nearby, its back doors yawning wide in anticipation of new cargo. The bone-white face of a mother waiting to learn the fate of her girls. Whispers hissing through the crowd like electric current. And then, the telling shrill of a whistle.
A hush settles over us, the kind that carries a weight of its own—the weight of the dead. No one moves as the first body appears, the glimpse of an arm in a muddy brown coat, water pouring from the sleeve as the sodden form is dragged up onto the bank. A bloated, blackened face, partly obscured by hanks of sopping dark hair.
They’re careful with her, handling her with a tenderness that’s gruesome somehow, and agonizing to watch. They’re preserving the evidence, I realize, and a cold lick goes down my spine. So they can make their case. Against me.
A short time later a second body appears, and there comes a broken wail, a mother’s heart breaking for her darlings.
And that’s how it all unraveled, the awful day that set up all the rest. The end of the farm. And perhaps, the end of the Moons.
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