Sycamore by Bryn Chancellor

My favorite thing about book festivals is discovering new authors. Last year at the Tucson Festival of Books, my sister bought Sycamore by Bryn Chancellor after we heard her speak. And like the nice sister she is, she let me borrow it. Oh, man was it good!

Jess Winters is seventeen-years-old in 1991 and out for a walk in the small northern Arizona town of Sycamore. She never comes home.

Eighteen years later, Laura Drennan, new to that same small town, is out for a walk and discovers human bones in the hard packed dried mud of an empty wash.

Everyone in this small town has a story and Chancellor gives us most of them. Told from the point of view of thirteen different characters, the truth of what happened all those years ago is slowly and methodically brought to light. This is the tale of a small town living with an unsolved mystery and everyone owns their own little piece of it.

This was a book I couldn't put down. In the beginning it was a little tricky to keep track of the characters and whose point of view we were hearing at the time, but if you just hold on and keep reading it all comes together. There are so many good characters in this book and I loved hearing all their different voices. I really liked this book and I think you will, too.