The Girl Who Stayed

By: Tanya Anne Crosby

Narrated by: Julie McKay

Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Zoe Rutherford wasn't sure what she was expecting when she returned to Sullivan's Island. The house on Sullivan's hadn't represented home to her in decades. It was the place where she had endured her father's cruelty. It was the place where her mother had closed herself off from the world. It was the place where her sister had disappeared.

But now that her parents are gone, Zoe needs to return to the house, to close it down and prepare it for sale. She intends to get this done as quickly as possible and get on with her life, even though that life seems clouded by her past, both distant and recent. But what she discovers when she gets there is far beyond her imagining and will change her in profound ways.

The Girl Who Stayed is a remarkable exploration of the soul by a writer with a rare talent for reaching into the hearts of her characters and her listeners, a novel of transformation that will leave you moved and breathless.

©2015 Tanya Anne Crosby (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A beautifully written, page-turning novel packed with emotion." (Number-one New York Times best-selling author Barbara Freethy)

"The Girl Who Stayed is a deeply moving story. I am fascinated by the concept and by Tanya Crosby's stunning storytelling." (Stella Cameron, New York Times best-selling author)

"The Girl Who Stayed defies type. Crosby's tale is honest and sensitive, eerie and tragic. It's a homecoming tale of a past ever with us and irrevocably lost forever. A haunting vision of that chasm between life and death we call 'missing.'" (Pamela Morsi, best-selling author of Simple Jess)

An atmospheric visit to a South Carolina island

Zoe Rutherford has come home to Sullivan's Island to deal with cleaning up and preparing for sale the house she and her brother grew up in, which they've rented out for years since their parents died. At least, that's the ostensible reason. In reality, the house and its problems give her a place to go and a problem to work on. Zoe has, after eight years, left her abusive boyfriend, Chris, and right at the moment has no idea what she's doing next.

The problem is there's an unsolved mystery on Sullivan's Island: What happened to her sister Hannah, who disappeared when she was eight and Zoe was ten? Neighbor kid and Hannah's friend Gabby Donovan claimed Zoe did it, pushing Hannah into the water where the currents would carry her away. Zoe knows she didn't, and there was never any evidence that she did, but no other culprit or cause was ever found. It's haunted her all the years since. It's why she's never returned to Sullivan's Island.

But she still wants to know what happened to her sister. And she returns to the news that two young women have disappeared without a trace in the last few months.

She starts to work on the house, repairing the damage done by years of tenants, and discovering that, with no tug rope to pull down the stairs, no one had ever bothered to go up into the attic.

The attic where, she and her brother Nick had stored their parents' and grandparents' things that they hadn't wanted to either toss or take.

Zoe spends the next weeks uncovering her past, reexamin There'sing her past, rethinking her relationship with her often hostile father and loving but withdrawn mother. There's the matter of rebuilding her relationship with Nick, just six when Hannah disappeared, and retracing her own steps the day of that disappearance. There's the problem of her grumpy but unexpectedly kind neighbor, Walter Donovan, Gabby's uncle. There's re-meeting the people she grew up among--some who remember Gabby's claims and, some of them, simply remember a younger Zoe, whom they grew up with, played with, went to school with.

Zoe keeps telling herself and others that she's not staying, even while re-experiencing both the bad and the good of small town life. And Chris remains an ongoing concern. Is he really going to let her just walk away?

And the whole time, she's looking for clues to her sister's disappearance.

It's an atmospheric and character-driven story, well worth some of your time. Recommended.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from Audible in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent

I really enjoyed this book especially since I lived in Chas. for over 65 years.

Not quite sure

This was an interesting book, I don’t believe that the summary of the book was written to give a reader an idea of what the book was about. I bought the book thinking it was a murder mystery and was very disappointed. I felt like I had to listen to the whole thing to get a surprise ending and was disappointed because it just ended. If you are looking to listen to a story about a chick discover herself after an abusive relationship and reconnect with her home roots and forgive her past then this may be for you. I found that the writer focused around a subject that lead no where and introduces characters that have no follow through. What happened to Ethan? What was written?? What did I just spend how many hours listening to? What was the goal of this story - I really can’t tell ya what gene it falls in. The writer psychs the reader with the story of the missing sister and woman but that really doesn’t flow with the story of Zoey trying to reconnect herself after being involved in an abusive relationship that may or many not have been exactly like she thought…. 21 of the chapters were just a wth is going on and 2 of trying to fit all the endings into them. Have a feeling this is a book that will leave the reader wondering for a few hours of think wth did I just read. Pick a storyline and go with it. Don’t try and cram 5 different plots into one story.