NOWHERE LIKE HOME

Lenna Schmidt arrives with her baby, Jacob, at a “mommune” outside Tucson, where she’s trying to reconnect with an old friend. Little does she suspect that someone pulled strings to get her there.

Two years ago, out of the blue, Lenna struck up a deep friendship with Rhiannon Cook, whom she met at an H&M store in Los Angeles. Mourning the loss of her mother, with whom she was incredibly close, Lenna hasn’t had many friends in her life. Rhiannon can be judgmental, particularly toward Gillian, a woman who hangs around the building where they all work, and Frederick, a co-worker on whom Lenna has a crush. But it turns out her life hasn’t always been easy; she tells Lenna that when she was young, her mother drove off a bridge with both her and her brother in the car, and her brother died. One day, Rhiannon skips town, leaving Lenna high and dry; in the radio silence that follows, Lenna begins to be friendly with Gillian, who has some pretty choice things to say about Rhiannon and, really, everyone else, including her roommate, Sadie. Now, two years later, Lenna has a secret—plus a husband, and a new baby—so when Rhiannon reaches out to see if she might want to visit the all-woman commune where she lives, Lenna agrees, hoping they might be able to clear the air. But what is supposed to be a sanctuary hides a malevolent presence from the past—someone hellbent on revenge. Lenna has to summon stores of courage and protective mother energy if she’s going to survive. Plenty of twists and turns, as well as some staggered narration—different voices, different time periods—keep the mystery moving. The payoff is okay. The thrills are fine. The deepest insight Shepard has to offer comes at the end: “All these missed chances, all these mistakes. It’s amazing people invest in friendship at all.”

Fans of Shepard’s other books will be pleased.