Showing results by narrator "Sarah Layden" in All Categories

The characters who inhabit Sarah Layden's short story collection are on the verge of change —if only they could see themselves and their situations with greater clarity. Caught in the midst of crises, they stumble toward the future without fully understanding their past. Layden’s deft, spare prose sketches worlds and lives with telling details, juggling disparate strands of identity and often revealing the deeper truths in unexpected moments of epiphany. A bride-to-be puts on her detective hat when her groom goes missing.

A clue to her boyfriend's murder during a study abroad program in Mexico draws Carey back into the mystery that led to his death, forcing her to re-examine her own culpability and the self-delusion that blinded her to the dangers of his world. Ben's missing passport resurfaces, and Carey, now in her late twenties and living with her parents in Indianapolis, learns that her Mexican restaurant co-workers know more than they've said. Past and present collide, bringing the truth into sharp focus.