Spencer's privileged family expects him to go to college and live a life of wealth and prominence. Mallory comes from a lower-income home, where her stepfather is controlling and manipulative. Scared about the future for different reasons, the two discover their own escapes: Spencer climbs mountains (or anything else he can find), while Mallory evades her stepfather by running away. Mallory and Spencer meet under stressful circumstances, but it's not long before they start to help each other through their problems and lead their own lives. Richards' latest is particularly intriguing; like her previous novel, One Was Lost (2016), it also features a chilling, small-town mystery. Though both teens face difficult dilemmas, in the present and looking forward, it is likely Mallory who readers will feel for most as she tries to escape an abusive home environment. This page-turning story of teens helping each other through dilemmas will attract and inspire readers.

Two teens with different life circumstances are drawn together in this thriller featuring a mystery set in their Ohio town's public library.When privileged, funny, and kind Spencer gets busted for breaking a library window while climbing the outside of the building, he winds up doing community service there to make amends. It doesn't take him long to notice smart, self-possessed Mallory, who spends long hours in the library since leaving home due to the unsettling behavior of her domineering stepfather. In short chapters that alternate between the two in first-person narration, their story unfolds, blending with an eerie subplot about strange and frightening occurrences that happen largely after hours within the library. Though there's never much doubt that they will become romantically involved, care is taken to develop both characters, including their places within their families—Spencer, adopted by loving and extremely wealthy parents, acutely feels the weight of their expectations, while Mallory's heart-rending experience of being homeless and worrying about her mom, who's pregnant, is poignantly told. Spencer is described as having bronze skin, which differs from his adoptive family's pale blondness. Mallory is implied white. There is some ethnic diversity among secondary characters, including Mallory's best friend, Lana, whose Venezuelan family is struggling following her dad's and brother's deportations.A taut, compelling mystery and a compassionate realistic fiction novel all in one. (Thriller. 14-18)