What The Valley Knows

Millington Valley is a quintessential small Pennsylvania town: families go back generations. Football rules. Kids drink while adults look the other way. High school is a whirlwind of aspiration and rivalry, friendship and jealousy.

When smart and pretty Molly Hanover moves to town and attracts the attention of the football team’s hero, Wade Thornton—a nice guy with a bad drinking habit—longtime friendships are threatened and a popular cheerleader tries to turn the school against Molly.

The young couple’s future is shattered when Wade, drunk, wrecks his truck and Molly is thrown through the windshield. She wakes from a coma to find her beauty marred and her memory full of holes. As she struggles to heal, she becomes sure that something terrible happened before the accident. And there is somebody in the valley who doesn’t want her to remember.

Author's Notes

What The Valley Knows has several important themes: first love, bullying, teen alcoholism, self-image, and sexual assault. The themes became more evident the more I got to know my characters and the more the story evolved. I’d say the characters beget the themes. My hope is the #metoo movement makes my book a timely read. What The Valley Knows fell into the YA genre by accident. Initially, it was told from six points of view: four adults, and two teenagers. The novel was my creative thesis in my MFA program and as I worked through revisions, the points of view whittled to three: two high school seniors (Molly Hanover and her boyfriend Wade Thornton) and one adult (Molly’s mother Ann Hanover). The book straddles the line between YA and adult fiction, but ultimately if it must be put in a box, I’d stick it in the YA container. My hope is that it appeals to both audiences.

Average: 5 (1 vote)

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Genre: Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

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ISBN: 9781612969404

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