By day Mary Andrea Clarke holds down a responsible position in the Civil Service - but by night she is a crime fiction writer
Arrowood - a house and a family, both bearing scars of a traumatised past, both moving into a new phase with uncertainty, unanswered questions and a past that can’t let go.
Arden Arrowood’s return to the home of her childhood, left to her by her grandfather, is a combination of fresh start and looking back. The house which bears her surname is the only one where she has felt truly at home. Yet it was the scene of a traumatic incident in her childhood, an unsolved mystery notorious through its uncertainty, giving rise to theories which became almost accepted as fact through repetition.
When she was eight years old, Arden’s younger twin sisters, Tabitha and Violet, disappeared while playing in the garden. Briefly leaving them to fetch some flowers, Arden returned to see a gold car speeding away, convinced the light hair she saw inside belonged to the toddlers. As babysitter and witness to the final sighting of her sisters, Arden has carried a heavy burden over the twenty years since. She has divided her life into the time before and after the twins disappeared. It has impacted many decisions, preventing her from moving forward. Her sense of responsibility prompted her to write letters to Veronica and Tabitha at Arrowood after she and her parents left, in case they returned. She even frowned in photographs, wanting everyone to know that if she disappeared, she saw it coming.
Arden is uncertain what to expect on moving back to Arrowood. If not exactly seeking to pick up where she left off, she craves the security of her early childhood. The past always cloaks around her, from the caretaker Heaney, who has history with her parents, to her former best friend and first love, Ben, whose family still lives next door.
Although gone, the twins are always present. Between Arden’s memories, neighborhood myth and the website of the unsolved mystery buff that comes into her life, the case is kept alive. Arden has to confront the past to determine her future. In a clever twist to a compelling story, what she learns is a surprise to us all.
