The Lost and Found Girl

April 25, 2022
Yates (Once upon a Cowboy) packs an emotional punch with this masterful, multilayered contemporary that walks the line between women’s fiction and romance. In Pear Blossom, Ore., sisters Marianne, Dahlia, Lydia, and Ruby McKee look like members of a perfect family—but all are dealing with their own demons. Ruby was adopted when the McKees found her abandoned as a newborn in the winter, and she struggles to understand her origins. Lydia’s husband died from ALS six months before the start of the novel, and she’s horrified to find herself falling for his best friend, Chase. Marianne’s marriage is going through a rough patch. And Dahlia’s determined to vanquish her lifelong insecurities about never measuring up to Ruby by learning the story behind Ruby’s abandonment. Alternating between each sister’s perspectives, Yates offers an authentic slice of small-town life and explores the damage secrets and assumptions can cause. A shocking twist about Ruby’s parentage, combined with devastating revelations about someone who is thought to be a pillar of the community and the truth about a 15-year-old who went missing 22 years earlier, brings this emotional roller coaster to a powerful finish. Yates’s pitch-perfect plotting and carefully crafted characters make for a story that’s sure to linger in readers’ minds. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary.