Silent Sister

by Megan Davidhizar Narrated by Karissa Vacker

Overview

The must-read suspense novel of the summer about a mysterious girl's disappearance, her biggest betrayal and a deadly truth screaming to come out.

Two sisters went missing on their class trip-Grace, the outgoing athlete who is friends with just about everyone, and Maddy, the wallflower wilting in her sister's shadow who'd rather absorb herself in her journal than talk to her classmates.

But when Grace is found-injured, with no memory of what happened-everybody thinks she's lying. It's hard not to look guilty with Maddy's blood on her clothes.

Desperate to save her sister-and prove her own innocence-Grace must piece together what happened on that school trip with the help of her sister's notebook and classmates who may not be telling the police everything that about that tragic night.

She will discover her sister's secrets can't stay quiet...but what if her own are the most terrifying of all?


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of the Educators' Guide from the printed book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Twisted and suspenseful.” —April Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Girl, Stolen and Stay Dead
 
"An emotional, thrilling ride."—Liz Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of The Agathas
 
“Only in the final pages will it let you up for air. Superb!" —Jennifer Lynn Alvarez, author of Friends Like These

“An unputdownable whodunnit you won't want to miss.” —Jessie Weaver, author of Live Your Best Lieand Lie Until It's True

"The twisty plot will engage teens who enjoy stories told from multiple perspectives and by unreliable narrators, and it culminates in an explosive ending....Twists abound in this thrilling debut." —Kirkus Reviews

"It is part thriller, part mystery, part love story, and a deep dive into the psychology of memory, family, friendships, and the power of sisterhood... will keep readers on the edge of their seats all the way to the surprising end." —School Library Journal

School Library Journal

08/01/2024

Gr 9 Up—Capping the tail end of a school sponsored week known as Senior Sabbatical, Grace is discovered on the side of the road, rain soaked, covered in blood, and disoriented. In the hospital, the overhead television plays silently, showing Grace's picture alongside her sister Maddy, who Grace discovers is missing. Nothing helps her remember how she got there or where Maddy could be. No one knows what to think: were Maddy and Grace attacked? Whose blood is on Grace's hands, and why is she so bruised? As the hours go by and there is little to discover, Grace tries harder to remember. Arriving home from the hospital a few days later, Grace is confronted by a detective who is certain that while Grace cannot remember anything from the week, she is hiding things, too. This novel is told in alternating chapters from Maddy's perspective and time line leading up to the day when Grace is found, and Grace's thoughts and actions as she tries to piece together what happened and her role in it. It is part thriller, part mystery, part love story, and a deep dive into the psychology of memory, family, friendships, and the power of sisterhood. Grace's search for the truth will keep readers on the edge of their seats all the way to the surprising end, breaking their hearts and giving them hope in the power of love, family, and friends. VERDICT Recommended. Readers who like a challenging mystery tied up with the trials of growing up, love, jealousy, and the importance of family will find much to like here.—Connie Williams

AUGUST 2024 - AudioFile

Karissa Vacker differentiates this audio's alternating viewpoints so distinctly that it seems like there are two narrators. Maddy has gone missing on a senior trip, and Grace, her elder sister by less than a year, has suffered a head wound and has only vague memories of her sister's disappearance. In narrating their journal entries, Vacker voices Maddy's social awkwardness in the days before she goes missing. Alternately, Vacker projects Grace's popularity and outgoing nature before Maddy's disappearance. Afterward, there's only confusion and distress in Grace's relationships with her parents and peers. Vacker shows Grace's determination to find out what happened. She tracks the tension of Grace's investigation, delivering the secrets that emerge and keeping listeners engaged. S.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2024-05-04
A teen’s lost memories may hold the key to her missing sister’s fate.

Outgoing, athletic Grace and shy poet Maddy, sisters born just 10 months apart, were on their senior trip when they went outside during a storm, and only Grace returned. Grace can’t remember anything after getting on the Forest Lane Academy bus for a week in the mountains at Shady Oaks Lodge, and she struggles to recover her memories while she heals from a head wound she got that night. The police are getting nowhere, so Grace sets out to figure out what happened to her sister, but their schoolmates are acting strangely, and an anonymous blogger is posting theories about what happened, some of which point the finger at her. The more details Grace uncovers about Maddy’s life, however, the more unsettled she becomes. Both girls were keeping secrets—but were any of them serious enough to put them in danger? The suspense builds steadily, and multiple red herrings will keep readers guessing. Maddy’s poems are interspersed throughout the text and add to her characterization as an isolated, angsty lost soul. The twisty plot will engage teens who enjoy stories told from multiple perspectives and by unreliable narrators, and it culminates in an explosive ending. Most characters are cued white.

Twists abound in this thrilling debut. (Thriller. 12-18)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160125466
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/06/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

Grace: April 27

The face on a missing person poster is supposed to be a stranger. Those yellowed papers tacked up in grocery stores are children who disappeared fifteen years ago. Amber Alerts are kids from other states with parents fighting for custody. And yet the face staring back at me from the TV—the girl under the siren-­red MISSING letters—

That’s me.

If there’s any face I should recognize instantly, it’s my own. I’ve seen it a million times in every mirror and every photo I’ve ever appeared in. But I don’t recognize the girl staring back at me from the hospital’s flat-­screen. It’s like looking at someone else, not myself.

Whoever sent in the picture cropped our volleyball team photo where I’m wearing my uniform, and I have perfectly straight brown hair and a shiny smile. The image on the screen shows a happy Grace, one who laughs and charms and lives up to her name. Nothing like the Grace I am now: weak, bruised, and broken in a hospital bed.

The TV’s volume is muted, but the dull hum of the AC suddenly roars in my ears. The photo is replaced by one of me and my sister, cheek to cheek. There are no captions, but I can imagine the news anchor’s voice, cold and detached, updating the community on the status of the search: Grace Stoll was found on the side of the road early yesterday morning, but the search for her sister, Maddy, continues. As if on cue, the screen switches again, this time to a picture of Maddy.

We look as if we could be twins. She resembles me more in that photo than I do right now. My hair is still tangled and knotted, and while the dried blood’s been washed away from my face, I spotted some flecks of it along my hairline in the bathroom mirror this morning.

I look exactly like you’d expect after being found on the side of the road.

But I’m not the one still missing. Maddy is.

It’s only been a little over a day since I woke up and was told my sister is gone. I’ve been trying to convince myself it’s still early . . . There’s still time . . . It hasn’t even been forty-­eight hours yet. We’ll find her.

We will.

Maybe it’s a blessing that I look like this, that the reflection gazing back at me is a stranger, that I don’t have to see a copy of Maddy’s face in the mirror knowing she’s still out there. Somewhere.

Mom comes in, carrying a bouquet of flowers in one hand and wiping her puffy eyes with the other. Watching her pain is worse than feeling it myself. She tries her best not to cry in front of me, but the tears haven’t stopped since she walked into the hospital yesterday. At first I thought she was only crying with relief that I was okay, but then Dad told me about Maddy.

Mom takes one look at the news update on the screen before grabbing the remote from my hand.

“Let’s turn this off.” She clears her throat, scraping away the tight hold of tears and worry. “Dr. Thelsman says the best thing you can do right now is rest, and they’re not reporting anything we don’t already know.” She sets the vase of flowers on the table beneath the TV, along with the remote, far out of my reach.

“I have been resting.” My voice is scratchy, raw, foreign.

A too-­soft pillow swallows my shoulders, and stiff sheets cover the long scratch up my left calf. The police took the clothes I was found in. When the hospital gown slips from my shoulder, I gently adjust it, careful not to tug the IV taped to the back of my hand. I can barely get out of bed without someone helping to hold up my gown or untangle the IV, much less help Maddy.

“Someone from the school came by to deliver this,” Mom says, ignoring me and pointing to the flowers surrounded by other colorful arrangements, cards, and gifts. The waiting room’s been a revolving door of people stopping by, neighbors and friends, mostly, since my parents were both only children and their extended family isn’t local. No one stays for long. I’m not allowed visitors yet. Plus, sitting in the lobby and wishing me good health is pretty useless when they could be searching for Maddy.

Mom hands me a get-­well card with scripty gold writing. The inside’s covered in student signatures: Mackayla, Jade, Nicole . . . 

“Nicole,” I say slowly. “She was on the trip with us.”

“You remember it?” Mom’s eyes grow wide—not with surprise. Something else. I shouldn’t have said anything, because too late I realize what it is: hope.

“No, not exactly,” I say. We stood outside the school before boarding the bus last Monday. Five days ago. It’s the last thing I remember. We were all signed up, packed, and ready to endure the hour-­long ride to Shady Oaks Lodge, and then . . . nothing. “Nothing new. Only before the trip.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.

“I’ll let you know when I remember something.”

She smiles. A genuine smile. The first genuine smile I’ve seen since I woke up this morning.

But my heart sinks further because I said when, and I meant to say if. The doctors already said they can’t predict whether those memories will return.

“Dad’s bringing some of your things from home,” Mom says.

“Does that mean I’m leaving?” I ask with hope of my own. The doctors ran every test they could yesterday. I was only awake for pieces of it. My eyes fluttered open when the ambulance siren screamed its arrival. The gurney jostled as they loaded me in. Doctors and nurses called my name. Someone asked me if I remembered what happened. I’m not sure how much time passed before my parents arrived. Mom cried into my shoulder, and Dad smoothed the hair back from my forehead to give me a kiss before I drifted back to sleep.

There were no flashes of nightmares or dreams, or what might have knocked me unconscious and landed me in the hospital in the first place.

There was nothing but darkness. Sleep. Silence.

But today, I’m awake. I’m fully aware of my reality: I can’t remember anything from our weeklong senior trip. My sister and I went missing, but I’m the only one they found.

“Dr. Thelsman wants you to spend one more night for observation, and then if everything else comes back clear, he hopes to release you tomorrow morning.”

Release me.

The doctors and hospital walls aren’t the only things trapping me.

A quick knock raps against the door with a hushed “Ms. Stoll?”

A tall, middle-­aged man swings the door open and enters with a clean-­shaven guy. Both wear police uniforms. The first man’s eyes move from my mom to me, and his face breaks into a soft smile. “Glad to see you awake.” A few gray hairs speckle his dark goatee. “I’m Detective Howard, and this is Officer Jones.” I shake his offered hand and nod to the younger officer, who waves. “I was hoping you might be able to answer a few questions for us.”

“I don’t know if she’s ready yet,” Mom says, her arm draped protectively over the back of my raised bed. “The doctor said—”

“The doctor said I’m fine,” I interrupt. “Every test has come back clear so far.”

“You’re hardly fine if you—”

Officer Jones jumps in: “With all due respect, your daughter’s eighteen and can legally make that decision on her own.”

My mom’s mouth drops in surprise, but Detective Howard speaks first. “It’s all right. We understand this might be difficult.” He talks to me, but his eyes flick to Mom. “We just want to get as much information as we can to help find your sister.”

“I want to do this. I want to help.” I should be searching for Maddy. I should be doing something to find my sister and make sure she’s okay. And if I’m stuck in this room, if this is the only way to be useful, then nothing is going to stop me.

Mom swallows and nods her consent, legally required or not. Detective Howard pulls a chair over to the edge of my bed and lowers himself to my level.

“What do you remember from the trip?”

“Nothing, I—I can’t remember anything.”

Dr. Thelsman said memory loss is fairly common following a head injury or traumatic event. Even though no one knows exactly what this event was, it’s pretty obvious it can be classified as traumatic.

Detective Howard pauses. “Do you know why you might have been on Oldham County Road?”

“No, I didn’t even know the name of it until right now.”

“That’s where Trent Gutter found you yesterday morning.”

“Your math teacher?” Mom asks.

“History,” I correct.

“He was a chaperone on the trip,” Detective Howard clarifies.

“Mr. Gutter was?” I ask. “But Mr. Holtsof and Mrs. Sanderson were the ones at the meeting.” They were definitely the two staff members originally signed up for Senior Sabbatical. Then, at the surprised look on Detective Howard’s face, I add, “I can remember everything from before the trip. All of it.”

He nods and consults his notes. “We spoke to a Mr. Trent Gutter and Mrs. Katie Sanderson, both Forest Lane Academy staff members assigned to chaperone the trip.”

When I neither confirm nor deny this fact, Detective Howard shares a glance with Officer Jones, who then types something into his phone, possibly a note to confirm that later. The detective asks slowly, “Can you think of anyone on the trip who might have wished you or your sister harm?”

“No, definitely not.” No hesitation. Not even a moment.

Mom gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but her fingers tremble.

Detective Howard waits as if he’s attempting to watch the memories play like a movie across my forehead, but there’s nothing else to say. We were with classmates, friends. No one who would hurt us.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I—” I pause, longing to pull at any thread of memory. The effort ignites a flash of sharp pain. I rub my temples, wishing it away.

“Do you recall fighting with your sister or anyone else on the trip?”

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