The Heat of the Moon

Praise for The Heat of the Moon... "A stylish, original, compulsively readable debut. Parshall explores the darkest side of family love and longing with pitch-perfect, highly engaging characters and a stunning end-game surprise." -Judith Kelman, Mary Higgins Clark Award winner "A honey of a yarn, a spooky, inverted fairy tale in which the princess (a plucky, endearing veterinarian) is held captive in her mother's castle, and nothing is as it seems." -Barbara Rogan, author of Suspicion Young veterinarian Rachel Goddard's world begins to crumble when a client rushes into the animal hospital with a basset hound struck by a car during a thunderstorm. The dog owner's terrified tot, drenched with rain, loses sight of her mother in the flurry of activity and screams, "Mommy! I want Mommy!" Instantly Rachel is hurled back in time to a day in her own childhood when her baby sister Michelle uttered the same cry while thunder crashed and rain poured down on them. The un-earthed memory feels like a fragment from a nightmare, and Rachel's quest for an explanation takes her deep into her own memory as well as halfway across the country. The heartbreaking truth she uncovers will shatter her world and force her to make an unthinkable choice. Sandra Parshall grew up in South Carolina and has worked as a reporter on newspapers in South Carolina, West Virginia, and Baltimore. She lives and writes in Northern Virginia. The Heat of the Moon is her debut novel. www.sandraparshall.com