When we meet Maggie Roberts, she is in the process of packing up and closing her bookshop for good. The market was fiercely competitive and margins were small, but Maggie knows the real reason her business failed was because she relapsed and went back to using drugs. While she is doing this, with the help of her good friend Rory, the police arrive and inform her that her daughter Lilly was killed in West Palm Beach, Florida. Reeling from shock and grief, Maggie goes to Florida with the intention of finding out how her daughter had been living the last three years and how she died. In Florida, Maggie is amazed by the affluent lifestyle her daughter had been living, and finds more than one potential suspect for her murder. However Detective Martinez seems to have fixated on one particular suspect – Maggie.

I have had a major book hangover since I finished The Heaven Spot. It has been a long while since I became so invested in a novel and its characters. It isn’t difficult to feel sympathy for Maggie – she has lost two children, one to murder and one to a miscarriage, her husband left the marriage and remarried, and she has struggled with a drug addiction. The author did a brilliant job of illustrating how difficult it is to stay clean when hardship hits, and the stigma, judgement and prejudice associated with addictions. You might think that the novel is depressing, but it isn’t at all. The setting was so well-described, I felt like I had been to West Palm Beach. Despite all her trauma, Maggie courageously perseveres in her daughter’s memory, with the help of her many new friends. It is a beautifully written book and I am now a fan of Mary Frances Hill. Many thanks to @ireadbooktours for introducing me to this author.