Never Forgotten

A woman’s murder sends her husband on an international search for justice in Linder’s energetic latest (after The Girl from the Hidden Forest). The story opens in turn-of-the-19th-century London as 17-year-old Simon Fancourt’s father demands that he join the clergy and marry socialite Georgina Whitmore. Feeling restless and constrained, Simon flees to America. Twelve years later, he’s living on a farm in North Carolina with his wife, Ruth, and two children. Tragedy strikes when two men break into the farmhouse and kill Ruth. Devastated, Simon learns that the suspects were British convicts illegally sent to America, so he returns to England to track down the responsible parties. When threats are made against his life, he asks Georgina—now 27 and still unmarried—to help protect his children. An attraction quickly grows between them, but Georgina struggles to move beyond Simon’s past rejection while Simon grapples with his faith in a God that allowed tragedy to strike his family. Linder develops her characters’ interior lives with subtlety and nuance, enriching the fast-moving plot with genuine tenderness and emotional depth. The result is an ideal mix of suspense and heart. (Nov.)