A college campus that's both welcoming and forbidding, a single mother's unconditional love for her daughter, and years of secrets swirl in Megan Miranda's absorbing You Belong Here.
A pervasive dread hovers over Beckett Bowery, who tries to handle her complicated emotions about keeping her daughter, Delilah, safe and allowing the 18-year-old to make her own decisions, all while hiding her own past. Beckett grew up in the mountain town of Wyatt Valley, Va., where her parents were professors at Wyatt College. She's even named after the building where they taught. It was expected that she would attend the college, but she was asked to leave during her senior year there, after two local men died in a fire in an underground tunnel at the college. At first, Beckett was a suspect, but blame shifted to her roommate, who disappeared.
Now a ghostwriter in North Carolina, Beckett is appalled that her daughter secretly applied to Wyatt and earned a full scholarship. Beckett views the town and college as places of danger but is powerless to stop Delilah, who's legally an adult. Beckett's fears are realized when Delilah briefly vanishes in the nearby woods during a freshman initiation and a body is found nearby.
Miranda (The Last House Guest; Fracture) skillfully shows how the past has a hold on Beckett, who knows that 20 years later, she remains suspected of starting that fire. Family dynamics compellingly stir the plot. Beckett's fraying relationship with Delilah echoes Beckett's parents' relationship with her. You Belong Here delivers elevated suspense. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer