The Valley and the Flood
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
"A tense and beautiful tale about the monsters we make and the memories that haunt us." —Kate Alice Marshall, author of I Am Still Alive and Rules for Vanishing
Rose Colter is almost home, but she can't go back there yet. When her car breaks down in the Nevada desert, the silence of the night is broken by a radio broadcast of a voicemail message from her best friend, Gaby. A message Rose has listened to countless times over the past year. The last one Gaby left before she died.
So Rose follows the lights from the closest radio tower to Lotus Valley, a small town where prophets are a dime a dozen, secrets lurk in every shadow, and the diner pie is legendary. And according to Cassie Cyrene, the town's third most accurate prophet, they've been waiting for her. Because Rose's arrival is part of a looming prophecy, one that says a flood will destroy Lotus Valley in just three days' time.
Rose believes if the prophecy comes true then it will confirm her worst fear—the PTSD she was diagnosed with after Gaby's death has changed her in ways she can't face. So with help from new friends, Rose sets out to stop the flood, but her connection to it, and to this strange little town, runs deeper than she could've imagined.
Debut author Rebecca Mahoney delivers an immersive and captivating novel about magical places, found family, the power of grief and memory, and the journey toward reconciling who you think you've become with the person you've been all along.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The cocreator of the audio drama serial The Bridge Podcast offers an eerie tale that begins with an interrupted road trip. On her way home to San Diego from Las Vegas, teenager Rose Colter's car breaks down in the middle of the desert. Then she hears a radio broadcast—"Rose, are you there?"—the final voicemail she received from her best friend, Gaby Summer, who was killed nearly a year prior to the book's start. Sighting a blinking radio tower in the distance, Rose heads for it on foot and ends up in Lotus Valley, a village populated by prophets, "strange people," and shadowy creatures "flitting in and out of the gaps in time." While awaiting her car's repair, Rose learns two things: Lotus Valley's denizens have been expecting her arrival, and according to prophecy, she brings a flood that will destroy the area. Mahoney meshes flashbacks and the present intricately and effectively, resulting in two equally dramatic narratives: Rose's situation, and the traumas she has experienced since the night Gaby was killed. Part allegory, part psychological thriller, this suspenseful debut is a moving study of grief, regret, and PTSD. Ages 12–up.