Harper Nash has had over a year to reset her life. It’s been 14 months since Ruby’s trial ended. It’s been 14 months since she saw her roommate go to prison for the murder of their neighbors, the Truetts. It was 14 months of a 20 year sentence. And that’s when she got released on a technicality.
Everyone in Hollow’s Edge was shocked. It was a small community, a group of houses where young professionals lived, most of them working at the nearby college or the prep school. They were water people, so they spent their evenings and summers together at their pool, or kayaking in the nearby lake, or grilling and drinking and laughing together.
Harper had bought the house originally with her fiancé when he was finishing his degree. Once he got his doctorate, he left. He left Hollow’s Edge and he left her.
Ruby had been an undergrad living a few doors down with her father. When her father decided to move to Florida, Ruby asked Harper if she could move in with her. Harper, still in shock from her fiance’s departure, agreed. But Ruby never quite fit in with the group. The Hollow’s Edge homeowners had their own message board, where they shared everything. Ruby was never asked to join in.
Then the Truetts were found, the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. Someone had let their dog out then started their car in the closed garage while they slept. The carbon monoxide detector that was in all the other Hollow’s Edge homes was missing from the Truetts’ upstairs hallway.
One of the first neighbors on the scene, Chase, was a police officer, and he helped his fellow officers collect evidence. He used the community message boards to find the video clips that showed Ruby out that night. He told them to be careful what they said to the police when questioned, not to offer extra information, to keep them from getting distracted. He helped convict Ruby of murder. Then he was used as the technicality that let her go free.
Harper was in her kitchen, slicing up fruit, when Ruby appeared back in the neighborhood. Not just back in the neighborhood, back in the house, in Harper’s house, acting like she’d just been gone for a quick trip and was ready to get settled back in her room. Harper didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to tell her no. But she knew that Hollow’s Edge, which was just getting back to normal, would never again be that quiet place she once thought it was.
Such a Quiet Place looks at the secrets and lies that are just under the surface of the lives we pretend to lead. Author Megan Miranda explores the areas between who we tell others we are and who we really are. She pulls apart the façade of a neighborhood to show us what’s really underneath. She creates layers of personality that keep us stuck, that cause us to make choices without thinking things through, that make us look away from what we don’t like, what we don’t understand, what we understand all too well.
I couldn’t stop reading this book. The way Miranda uses her characters to reveal the darkness of human character is fascinating. The more Harper learned about her neighbors, the more lies that got stripped away, the more secrets that were revealed, the more I was drawn into Harper’s world. And the twists? They were amazing. Fans of psychological thrillers will not want to miss Such a Quiet Place.
Egalleys for Such a Quiet Place were provided by Simon & Schuster through NetGalley, with many thanks.
