The Alone Time

Marr’s (The Family Bones; Strangers We Know) fifth suspense novel finds sisters Fiona and Violet Seng still struggling, years after they survived the crash of their family’s Cessna plane, which killed both of their parents and stranded the sisters (who were only children) in the woods for 12 weeks. To cope afterward, Fiona took to art, while Violet self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Having grown apart in adulthood, the sisters will have to repair their relationship to defend themselves against accusations that the plane crashed deliberately. These claims, which question the sisters’ version of events, are made by a woman who says she was their father’s mistress and is telling her story to an ambitious documentarian. Are Fiona and Violet victims of a tragedy, or did they orchestrate the plane crash and ensure that their parents didn’t make it out of the woods alive? As the novel is told from multiple perspectives, readers will have to pay close attention to who is narrating each chapter to avoid confusion.