What The Valley Knows
A Millington Valley Book
ISBN 9781612969404
Millington Valley is a quintessential small Pennsylvania town: families go back generations. Football rules. Kids drink while adults look the other way. High school is a whirlwind of aspiration and rivalry, friendship and jealousy. When smart and pretty Molly Hanover moves to town and attracts the attention of the football team’s hero, Wade Thornton—a nice guy with a bad drinking habit—longtime friendships are threatened and a popular cheerleader tries to turn the school against Molly.
The young couple’s dream of a future together is shattered when Wade, drunk, wrecks his truck and Molly is thrown through the windshield. She wakes from a coma to find her beauty marred and her memory full of holes. As she struggles to heal, she becomes sure that something terrible happened before the accident. And there is somebody in the valley who doesn’t want her to remember.
(The novel is Contemporary YA love/mystery—a mash-up of Friday Night Lights and Sweet Valley High—with adult cross-over appeal as it is told from three points-of-view: the teenagers, Molly and Wade, and Molly’s mother Ann.)
Winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Readers’ Favorites Awards, and the Maxy Awards.
What The Valley Knows was released January 25, 2018
by Black Rose Writing! It debuted as an Amazon Hot New Release Bestseller!
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Read an excerpt:
Prologue
Molly Hanover lifted her chin and the pain was so sharp her head slammed down onto the muddy gravel. Her teeth gashed her tongue and the copper taste of blood filled her mouth. She closed her eyes and the thump of her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
This wasn’t happening. She had to get up and find him. She needed to tell him something—something important—and her mother, she had decided she would tell her mother, too. They would help her.
At the edge of the field where she had fallen, a few un-harvested corn stalks jutted skyward. Late autumn grass sprouted in the weedy undergrowth. She lay splayed facedown, her arm twisted behind her back, raw pain searing through her right shoulder.
Where was he?
Again, she tried to raise her head and tiny spurts of light exploded against the darkness. Chilly rain stung her cheek and blurred her vision. Her hair stuck to her neck matted with bits of glass, dirt, and blood. The ground smelled fresh and earthy.
Help, she whispered.
It was hard to concentrate, but she listened carefully and heard the soft ping of rain hitting her nylon jacket.
Stay awake, she warned herself.
Don’t sleep.
She rolled and saw the wet road sparkle in a vehicle’s headlights. Maybe it was a bad dream. But the pain, the pain was real. Hot blood burned through the cut in her cheek.
Her mind raced and the sharp edge of panic pierced her memory. There was a secret, a thing unspeakable.
But it was gone.
Whatever she wanted to tell them had vanished.
Then her world went black.
