{"id":8117,"date":"2019-08-12T05:32:08","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T09:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8117"},"modified":"2019-08-12T05:53:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T09:53:04","slug":"gretchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8117","title":{"rendered":"****Gretchen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Shannon Kirk \u2013 The crime\u2014the first one that is\u2014is\nkidnapping. Shannon Kirk\u2019s gripping new psychological thriller Gretchen<\/em> begins with a mother determined\nto prevent her daughter\u2019s father from kidnapping her. Susan explains to Lucy\nthat he\u2019s from a country where women have no rights and live practically like\nslaves, and he will do anything\u2014send anyone\u2014to get her back. They\u2019ve been on\nthe run since Lucy was a toddler, never really settling down, and now they are\nfleeing Indiana, their tenth state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What will a mother do to protect her child? Live on the\nfringes of society and be prepared to pack up and leave at any moment. Never\nengage with anyone or reveal anything about themselves. Never even make eye\ncontact. Susan and Lucy have fake identities, she pays cash for everything, and\naccesses a hidden stash when they run short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that she\u2019s fifteen, Lucy is tired of the secrets, tired\nof the hiding, tired of not having friends, exhausted by Susan\u2019s paranoia.\nHomeschooled until recently, she barely has acquaintances, since she can\u2019t\nreally share personal information with anyone she meets in school. As the book\nopens, a chance encounter in a park with a man who acts as if he recognizes her\nforces them to pick up sticks and flee once again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan finds them a rental home in the small New Hampshire\ntown of Milberg. Although the landlord gives off a creepy vibe, Lucy wants to\nstay, to settle. He lives up the hill in a big brick house and has a daughter\nher age, Gretchen. Though the girl seems a bit odd, too, maybe she can be a\nfriend. Kirk\u2019s depiction of Lucy, in the chapters she narrates, is a persuasive\npicture of adolescent psychology. She\u2019s hoping for a friend despite the\nnegative signals, severe and over-confident in her judgments of Susan, silently\nsecond-guessing all her own actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirk expertly handles the ramp-up of tension between Lucy and Gretchen, and it\u2019s a relief when Lucy gets a summer job at the local gourmet grocery store\u2014a rare bit of mom-authorized independence. She won\u2019t go inside Gretchen\u2019s house again, but out-of-doors. Lucy paints while Gretchen works puzzles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At work one day, Lucy encounters the man who recognized her back in Indiana. Apparently, in an awkward coincidence, he and his son live in Milberg. He recognizes her again. And contrary to every paranoid impulse Susan has drilled into her, Lucy doesn\u2019t tell, even though it could turn out to be the riskiest decision possible. Of  course she\u2019s not the only one with secrets. Susan has a big one, and the landlord, well . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirk\u2019s flair for description brings his and his daughter\u2019s bizarre lives (and dwelling) vividly to life. They are a stark contrast to the middle-class normality of the Milberg residents Lucy observes from behind her cash register, a normality she\u2019s struggling to become part of. Quite a compelling read!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Puzzle photo: Sephelonor for Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Shannon Kirk \u2013 The crime\u2014the first one that is\u2014is kidnapping. Shannon Kirk\u2019s gripping new psychological thriller Gretchen begins with a mother determined to prevent her daughter\u2019s father from kidnapping her. Susan explains to Lucy that he\u2019s from a country … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****Gretchen - a psychological thriller that may change how you feel about jigsaw puzzles. Can Lucy put her life back together?\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,40,3,126,32],"tags":[1622,392,1621],"class_list":["post-8117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-gretchen","tag-psychological-thriller","tag-shannon-kirk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/jigsaw-puzzle.jpg?fit=213%2C320&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-gretchen","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8120,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8117\/revisions\/8120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}