The Ascent

In Buccola’s unsettling second novel (following Catch Her When She Falls), new mother Lee Burton struggles with overwhelming fear and anxiety about being apart from her seven-month-old daughter. Readers won’t be surprised by this aspect of Lee’s personality when they learn that she was raised in Jacob’s Hill, a small doomsday cult in rural Pennsylvania. When Lee was 12 years old, she woke up one morning to find that the other 14 members of the cult had completely disappeared, leaving her behind. Lee was later sent to live with her aunt and has since spent her life desperately seeking information about what happened to the other members of her community, particularly her mother and younger sister. Though the plot of Buccola’s novel slows somewhat in the middle, the overarching story is an enticing one, particularly when a stranger contacts Lee, claiming to have answers about the vanished members of Jacob’s Hill. Readers will be unsure of whom to trust or what to hope for as Lee delves further into her past while also trying to balance marriage and motherhood.