Say Her Name
'My book of the year so far...' --Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
In this chilling thriller from the bestselling authors of Spare Room, one woman just wants the truth about who she really is. But she's not the only one looking...
It's twenty years since Eva, a biracial woman, was adopted as an eight-year-old, and Cherry and Carlton 'Sugar' McNeil have always been the only parents she's wanted or needed. But when she's dealt the double blow of Cherry's death and her own suspension from work, Eva decides it's time to discover who she was before she was theirs.
Against Sugar's advice, Eva joins a DNA database, desperate for a match that will unlock her identity. And when a positive hit comes, she's excited to learn there are relations out there who might hold the key. But the closer Eva gets to uncovering her past, the more it appears someone is trying to stop her finally finding the truth...
As she continues to dig, Eva is drawn into a dark and merciless underside to society, where black women disappear without a word. Names erased from history, no search parties, no desperate pleas for their return. Once, someone tried to save Eva from all this. Someone wanted a better life for her. But now that she's torn down the facade of her life, has she come too far to be spared again?
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Community Reviews
I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this book. But I absolutely loved it!
Eva was adopted by Cherry and retired cop Carlton 'Sugar' McNeil at the age of 8 from a children's home. They are the only parents she's ever known and loved in her lifetime. Cherry has passed away and Eva decides that it's time to start searching for her birth mother. Her husband, Joe, buys her a DNA test kit and they send it in and wait for the results. While the results do not find her mother, they do find her biological father, Danny. Eva agrees to meet him and she finds out she has a half sister, Miriam. Danny and Miriam agree to help her find her birth mother. Eva is biracial, and since Danny is white, she obviously knows her mother is black. In searching for her mother, Eva finds out that Sugar has been investigating the disappearances of 4 black girls from a community center in 1994. Eva finds herself repeating the names of these 4 women, obsessed with this investigation and asks Danny to help. Little does she know, people are not who they seem to be...
I would say that the book starts off a little slow, however I got to a point where I literally could not put it down. I stayed up until 2 AM reading because I had to know what was happening. I found my heart racing during several scenes and had to remind myself that it's a book! But I LOVE IT when that happens. The whole concept behind this book, is that there is also a missing white woman along with these 4 black women. But whose face does the public see plastered everywhere? A missing black woman does not get the same media attention that a missing white woman. I loved that Say Her Name brings attention to that, because it is SO important.
Thank you so much goodreads and Dreda Say Mitchell.
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