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You'll Never Know, Dear: A Novel of Suspense
You'll Never Know, Dear: A Novel of Suspense
You'll Never Know, Dear: A Novel of Suspense
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You'll Never Know, Dear: A Novel of Suspense

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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FINALIST FOR THE 2018 MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

An addictive novel of psychological suspense from the award-winning author of Night Night, Sleep Tight, about three generations of women haunted by a little girl’s disappearance, and the porcelain doll that may hold the key to the truth . . .

Seven-year-old Lissie Woodham and her four-year-old sister Janey were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when an adorable puppy scampered by. Eager to pet the pretty dog, Lissie chased after the pup as it ran down the street. When she returned to the yard, Janey’s precious doll was gone . . . and so was Janey.

Forty years after Janey went missing, Lis—now a mother with a college-age daughter of her own—still blames herself for what happened. Every year on the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, their mother, Miss Sorrel, places a classified ad in the local paper with a picture of the toy Janey had with her that day—a one-of-a-kind porcelain doll—offering a generous cash reward for its return. For years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home.

It is the first clue in a decades-old mystery that is about to turn into something far more sinister—endangering Lis and the lives of her mother and daughter as well. Someone knows the truth about what happened all those years ago, and is desperate to keep it hidden.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateJun 6, 2017
ISBN9780062473646
Author

Hallie Ephron

Hallie Ephron is the New York Times bestselling author of Never Tell a Lie, Come and Find Me, There Was an Old Woman, and Night Night, Sleep Tight. For twelve years she was the crime fiction reviewer for the Boston Globe. The daughter of Hollywood screenwriters, she grew up in Beverly Hills, and lives near Boston, Massachusetts.

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Reviews for You'll Never Know, Dear

Rating: 3.4154929690140845 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Elisabeth (Lis) Strenger has felt guilty for close to forty years, since she was a seven-year-old child whose mother asked her to supervise her younger sister while they played in their yard. When a puppy caught Lis's attention, she chased it and forgot about four-year-old Janey. Subsequently, her sister disappeared and has not been seen or heard from since. Lis's mother, Sorrel Woodham, whom everyone calls Miss Sorrel, does not blame Lis for the tragedy. In fact, even after four decades have passed, she firmly believes that her long-lost daughter will return.

    "You'll Never Know Dear," by Halle Ephron, is a thriller with a Southern gothic flavor. It takes place in Bonsecours, a South Carolina town where wisteria blooms, trusting people leave their doors unlocked, and meddlesome neighbors gossip about one another but lend a helping hand when needed. Adding a creepy dimension to the goings-on are the lifelike dolls custom-made by Miss Sorrel and her best friend, Evelyn Dumont: "Each face was a carefully sculpted and painted portrait of a real child." Some of these have become expensive collector's items that "were as valued for their eerily realistic features as for their scarcity."

    One day, a stranger brings Miss Sorrel a battered old doll that the elderly woman recognizes at once. This meeting sets in a motion a series of events that will have life-changing consequences. Ephron creates colorful and intriguing characters and explores such themes as the power of nightmares to destroy one's peace of mind, and the constructive and destructive ways in which individuals handle adversity. The author is, for the most part, a proficient writer who generates an appropriately spooky and suspenseful atmosphere. The ending is flawed, however; Ephron wraps up the proceedings with a predictable and melodramatic conclusion. This quibble aside, "You'll Never Know, Dear" is an engrossing and fast-paced novel that will hold readers' attention while they try to figure out who is behind all of the mayhem.
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "You'll Never Know Dear" by Hallie Ephron was a quick read. It is the story of a woman who's sister disappeared years ago and she's always blamed herself. Her mother is a doll maker and the kidnapped sister's doll disappeared with her. Every year the mother places an ad in the paper asking about the doll and a reward for its return . This year someone brings the doll in. I knew whodunit early in the story, but it was still a quick enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Two stars for an okay read. The books description of psychological suspense had me ready to read, but it just did not meet my expectations. The story revolves around the decades old mystery of a kidnapped sister who disappeared with her doll. Forty years later, the doll resurfaces. There were just too many unlikely coincidences for me. However, I was super excited as I read the descriptions of the setting. I kept thinking, this sounds just like where I live. Bonsecours is the name of the town where the story takes place, but a few chapters in, I knew the author was describing our beautiful town of Beaufort, SC! I received a complimentary copy from Librarything Early Reviewers in exchange for a review.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I received this book as part of the LT early reviewer program. Set in a small coastal town in the south, this is the story of a decades old kidnapping and the family it has affected. Ms Sorrel makes beautiful dolls, and when her daughter is taken from her yard, the doll that disappeared with her may be the only key to finding her, even a lifetime later.I enjoyed the pacing and characters in this book. It was easy to read and felt myself engage in-- my only real complaint was that it was too easy to solve the "who dunnit." I felt like it was obvious from almost the beginning of the book and kept waiting for a change of course that never came.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, DEARis not what it claims to be, a novel of suspense. It is a mystery, yes. But suspenseful? Not really.This book begins with a young woman, Maggie, visiting a doll maker/repairer, Sorrel. When Sorrel lays her eyes on Maggie's doll, she insists repeatedly that Maggie tell her where she got it. The story actually began 40 years before the book does. Elisabeth and Janey, Sorrel's seven- and four-year-old daughters, were outside playing. When Elisabeth ran off to follow a puppy, Janey disappeared. Neither she nor her doll were ever found again until Maggie appeared with the doll 40 years later.Now Elisabeth is an adult. She lives with her mother and has an adult child of her own. Together they try to find Janey or at least find out what happened to her, but the various mysteries they encounter lack suspense. Partly that is because they are predictable. Also, the book reads like a young adult novel. As an adult, I feel beyond that. So I was bored.I won this book through librarything.com
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    You'll Never Know, Dear"....how much I love you -- please don't take my sunshine away...Two little girls are playing outside one day when a little puppy runs past. The older girl, Lis, is captivated and leaves little Janey behind as she chases after it. When she returns, Janey is gone. She was never found. Flash forward almost 40 years. Lis and her daughter are living with Miss Sorrel, a renowned dollmaker (she is Lis's and Janey's mother), and have almost made their peace with Janey's absence all these years. Miss Sorrel still believes that Janey is out there somewhere, and every anniversary of her disappearance, she puts an ad in the paper with the picture of the portrait doll she had made for Janey -- hoping that somehow it will be recognised and Janey will see it -- wherever she is. Well, someone does see it. Jenny Richards brings the doll to Miss Sorrel. And Lis and her daughter Vanessa feel that somehow Jenny is connected. I won't give any spoilers, but this was a satisfactory -- though predictable -- story.I enjoyed the characters and the family drama as these women go about solving the mystery through revelations and gut instinct. I've never read any of this author's previous work, but I'd definitely like to give it further attention. Nice little domestic drama.Thank you to Harper Collins for sending me the hardcover to review -- I enjoyed the book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The idea of a bunch of eyes watching you is enough to give you chills. I can image the kind of life that Lissie lived with her mother being a dollmaker. The most fascinating thing is that the dolls' wigs were made out of real hair. I found all of the women engaging. They interacted well together. There was hardly any police engagement in this story, except for Deputy Policy Chief Frank Ames. Even than, he seemed more like an sport to the women as they attempted to solve the mystery of what happened to Janey. Speaking of the mystery. While, I had no problems with the start of the story happening forty years after the disappearance of Janey, the lack of clues leading to the disappearance until the last third of the story made the reading experience more muted then heightened. Although, I must admit that the project that Vanessa, Lissie's daughter was working on with dreams was interesting. It played nicely with the story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a fast read. The author throws out just enough hints to pretty much let the reader know who was involved in the kidnapping of Janey Woodham forty years ago, but with several possibilities, the reader is not exactly sure which suspect is the right one or what the motive was for the kidnapping, so the reader must forge on to the end to find out.All in all a good read, however a few events seemed a little too contrived and some characters a bit flat. Such as Maggie showing up with the doll expecting a reward, and then just leaving the doll behind and not really pressing about the reward when she and her mother were so desperate. And what about Frank and Lis' relationship first it's good, then he patronizes her, then what were they to each other? Also Maggie pretty much disappears in second part of the book. I guess she was just the vehicle to lead the reader to Jenny. It seemed like a lot of characters were thrown in but had little to do with the whole story. Oh well, as I said, all in all it was good for a fast summer read, but probably not one that will stick with you very long after.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.Lis' sister, Janey, went missing one day from their own backyard. Forty years later, a woman turns up with Janey's doll, setting in motion a series of events that will change the lives of multiple generations.I love a book that deals with secrets from the past, and this is a book that definitely does that. There are so many questions and twists that come up throughout the whole book, and so many mysteries to solve.There are some really great, complex characters in this book.The main characters are all women, all strong in their own right, but with their own struggles and secrets. Everything the characters are now is somehow linked to that fateful disappearance from the past, even Lis' daughter who wasn't born when the tragedy occurred.I sometimes felt like there was too much going on. Reveals would sometimes seem to come out of left field, and it could get difficult to keep everything straight sometimes.This may not be the best psychological suspense I've ever read, but I did enjoy it. I read it in about a day, and found myself not wanting to put it down because I had to find out what happened.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 stars and a thank you to LibraryThing.Com for my review copy.I was attracted to this book by the creepy doll on the cover, wondering if dolls can still get to me like they once did. Well, this was not as creepy as I had expected (and hoped) -- no dolls displaying signs of life; no Twilight Zone flashbacks. This has more of a slow-burn, smoldering feel to it.Two friends/neighbors, Miss Sorrell and Evelyn, are retired from their business of making dolls. Miss Sorrell's daughter Janey went missing some forty years ago, along with the doll Miss Sorrell had made especially for her. The older daughter Lis was supposed to be watching Janey so she's felt guilty all these years, and still lives with her mother. They place a yearly ad offering a reward for the missing doll and any information as to where it came from. A young woman answers the ad with a very old, damaged doll, leaves in a huff without giving her contact information, and the story takes off as the family tries to pursue this very strong possibility of a connection to Janey.The story is engaging and did keep me wanting to read on to see how the various mysteries would come out; to see if what I thought had happened to Janey came true (I had it pegged almost to the letter). As in many suspense novels, this had its red herrings and implausible coincidences. A rather slow start for me and then it took off, with well-drawn characters and an interesting sleep study program as a side story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Creepy doll book? Kidnapping? Why of course!!!Four year old Janey disappears from her front yard while her sister was supposed to be watching her. Janey's mom is a famous dollmaker and restorer and someone shows up at her house many years later with a doll that could be Janey's. This novel reminds me a lot of Mary Higgins Clark and Wendi Corsi Staub, so if you like those authors, you will love this. A really great, fun read.Thank you to LibraryThing for the ARC!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book is the very definition of a "beach read." There is very little suspense or substance despite the promise on the book cover. There is, however, a great deal of information about the creation of dolls. I probably wouldn't have finished it if it weren't an Early Reviewers' book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting info about dolls, and a nice set-up, even if there's a pretty clear idea where things are heading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Cold case/missing person mysteries are always good, and this one was a good summer read. Characters were pretty well done and believable, very contemporary issues and background... a girl disappears from her own back yard, sister feels responsible but then the girl's broken doll shows up. The plot however was very formulaic, like Ms Ephron took parts from a Hallmark mystery movie. Still though there were enough twists to keep me reading to the end, when everything is finally explained.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The blurb for this book makes it sound like a suspense novel and the cover with the creepy doll is also pretty sinister. Unfortunately, the book didn't live up to either the blurb or the cover. It's not a thriller, it's really women's fiction about mothers/daughters/sisters (to such an extent that there are only a handful of men in the book and only one of them appears on more than 2 pages, even the dog is female). The story is about a toddler who went missing almost forty years ago. Her custom-made doll disappeared at the same time and the doll has now been delivered to the toddler's mother by a young woman looking for the promised $5,000 reward. You can probably guess most of the rest of the story from here. I was hoping for something more suspenseful, atmospheric and unpredictable. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A young girl disappeared from her yard over forty years ago. When her doll isv brought back to her home, the family renews their hope that they will find out what happened and start to investigate. I enjoyed the book, even though I figured things out way too early. A house full of dolls was a little creepy, but it was a fast paced, fun book to read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A doll is returned to Miss Sorrel after vanishing 30+ years ago along with her toddler daughter. This book was OK. Very systematic writing. There was a surprise or two but nothing earth shattering. I couldn't get into the story and the characters didn't appeal to me but in interest of fairness, I am in a reading slump and forced myself to finish it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Whatever you want to call this – mystery, thriller, psychological suspense – You’ll Never Know, Dear fits the bill. Three generations of women in a small town Georgia family are existing on the income earned from the matriarch’s doll-making and repair enterprise and their memories of the day a young sister was kidnapped with her own custom doll. When a clue finally arrives, so do the beginnings of fear, as danger begins to surround them. As the strings tighten around the women, the missing girl’s now-grown sister begins to find the answers to the knots in the mystery and to untangle them. I thought Hallie Ephron wrote a tight mystery with characters who felt real to their circumstances. Learning a bit about doll-making was an extra perk.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    You’ll Never Know, Dear by Hallie Ephron is a 2017 William Morrow publication. Deceptively addicting-Three generations of women work to find the answer to a forty- year old puzzle in which the biggest, most important clue is a priceless porcelain doll. Miss Sorrel, is a doll maker and collector, who at one time had a booming doll making business and made a name for herself among collectors. But, the doll that means the most to her, the one she is always in constant search of, is the one that disappeared along with her daughter, Janey forty years ago. Lissie never got over the disappearance of her younger sister and always blamed herself for what happened. The incident has haunted her all her life, even through marriage, divorce, and motherhood. Vanessa is Lissie’s only child, a sleep/dream researcher who returns home after her grandmother has a health scare. Little does she know her area of expertise will come into play while she is there. With all three generations now under one roof, the women are ready to seriously consider the possibility that Janey’s doll has found its way back to them and that the doors of the decades old cold case are about to blow wide open. I thought the cover of this book was a little creepy, and the title was intriguing. While the missing child theme is hardly a new one, I always find this to be a compelling storyline, and also falls within my favorite mystery trope- the cold case. This book also appealed to me in a way because my grandmother made her own ceramics, and on occasion made porcelain dolls, as a hobby. Not only that, my daughter had a nice doll collection we displayed behind glass when she was younger, so I could understand the value and work that goes into the making of these dolls. The mystery is intriguing, and kept me interested, and guessing for a good while, but I did guess who was behind the kidnapping before it was revealed. Still, I couldn’t figure out the motive, so there was still an element of mystery to keep me invested in the story. There were a few too many conveniences, and for some reason the dream thread didn’t do anything for me. But, I did like the way it all came together in the end, although one may have to suspend belief a little for it to work. However, the feel good, grab a tissue, emotional parts won me over, causing me to overlook a few implausibilities. I’ve never read anything by this author, so didn’t have any expectations one way or another, but I liked this book well enough to give the author’s other work a try. Even though it wobbles here and there, I enjoyed the book, overall.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sorrell Woodham runs a doll hospital of sorts, repairing and refreshing dolls brought to her for her tender ministrations. For a time, many years ago, the talented woman was a doll-maker who created several unique portrait dolls. Each distinctive doll resembled the little girl who would own it. Both of her daughters, Lissie and Janey, had their very own “twin” doll.But Janey and her look-alike doll disappeared without a trace when the little girl was just four years old. Seven-year-old Lissie was supposed to watch her younger sister, but a cute puppy she wanted to pet distracted her from her sister-watching. Lissie, now grown and with a daughter of her own, has never been able to forgive herself for what she views as her fault for her sister’s abduction. Each year, on the anniversary of Janey’s disappearance, Lis’s mother, Miss Sorrell, places an ad in the newspapers. Along with a picture of Janey’s one-of-a-kind portrait doll is an offer of a generous reward for the return of the doll. But in all the years she has had the ad published, no one ever brought her the doll and claimed the reward.Until this year.After forty years, Janey’s doll has finally come home. But will the doll’s reappearance open the door to finding the answers about what happened to the little girl all those years ago? Or will the doll’s return signal a revelation no one could ever have anticipated?The setting for this suspense-filled novel is the fictional town of Bonsecours, South Carolina, a southern location so integral to the story that it becomes a character itself. And the dolls, central to the narrative, add a slightly cringe-worthy creepiness to the chilling tale. But the doll-making details add a unique element to the story as they draw the reader further into Miss Sorrell’s world. Each clearly-defined character is well-developed and brings believability to the story. Especially noteworthy are the spot-on details of Miss Sorrell’s behavior as she was “getting through the day” after her young daughter disappeared and her subsequent ways of dealing with the loss of her child.As the story unfolds, unexpected events ramp up the suspense, keeping the pages turning in this unputdownable book. Astute readers may be able to resolve the mystery of Janey’s disappearance before the story’s unexpected reveal, but this page-turner will be impossible to set aside. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When a child disappears, the pain never goes away no matter how long ago it has been.Lis Woodham's four-year-old sister, Janey, along with her doll disappeared forty years ago and was never found. There were no clues about what happened then and no clues now.Each year Janey's mother, Miss Sorrel, would put an ad in the paper on the anniversary of the disappearance in hopes that someone would come forward with the doll or information about her daughter's disappearance and earn the reward offered. There never was an answer to the ad for all of those years except for now. Someone saw the ad and brought a battered doll to their house hoping it was Janey's. Before they could tell if the doll was actually Janey's, the person bringing the doll ran out of the house and disappeared.This caused more anxiety for the family, and it seemed that once the doll was returned, the family was plagued with danger. Their house was burglarized and then filled with carbon monoxide causing harm to Grandma Sorrel and Lis.The accident brought Lis's daughter, Vanessa, home to help take care of her mother and grandmother, and Vanessa got involved in the forty-year-old investigation. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR was a mystery that will definitely hold your interest because of Ms. Ephron’s talent of drawing the reader into the story. YOU’LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR wasn't fast paced or gripping, but had just enough intrigue to keep you turning the pages.The ending revealed quite a few secrets that some of the characters wished had not been revealed and other secrets that were welcome revelations.YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR was a good mystery with tense moments and a mystery that will keep you guessing. 4/5This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Forty years ago the Sorrel family was struck by tragedy when the youngest daughter, Janey, went missing. Lissie, the oldest daughter, was seven-years-old on the day it happened. She was outside with Janey playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when a black and white puppy showed up and drew Lissie to chase after him. After recently losing her own dog, Lissie desperately wanted to play with this one and left Janey in the yard as she took off after it. When Lissie finally returned Janey, along with her doll, was gone. Present day finds us with Lissie, who now goes by Lis, a woman who a number of years ago moved back her hometown and in with her mother. After a rocky divorce many years ago Lis returned with her daughter to the town she did not want to be in and has built herself a new life. Now that her daughter, Vanessa, has moved away for college, Lis is slowly trying to rebuild her self-confidence, but cannot stop blaming herself for what happened to Janey all those years ago. Their mother, Miss Sorrel, continues to be haunted by the loss of her daughter as well and each year she places a classified ad in the paper with a picture of Janey’s doll offering a reward for its return. Miss Sorrel’s hope is that if someone has the doll, they can give information on how they found it that would lead to answers on what happened to Janey. In the past there have been many false claims brought to Miss Sorrel by people looking to cash in on the reward she is offering, but this year is different. A young woman named Maggie shows up at the Sorrel house with Janey’s doll. As the Sorrel women dig deeper into the owner of this doll and its history, they bring themselves closer and closer to danger. Who in this sleepy town of Bonsecours is to be trusted? What really happened to Janey all those years ago?YOU’LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR presents an intriguing story of a missing child and a family desperate to find answers many years later. The novel is filled with deception presented to the Sorrel family by people they have always trusted. It is a story of secrets and lies that have over the years built upon each other and now with the return of Janey’s doll they slowly come to the surface. Despite Ephron’s use of red herrings throughout the novel, I found it easy to guess who was behind the disappearance. There were some revelations that I didn’t expect, but overall they were far and few between. YOU’LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR left me wanting more suspense and more edge of your seat intrigue. While the ending was more fast-paced than the rest of the novel, it wasn’t enough to boost this book beyond a middle of the road rating for me. Thank you to William Morrow and Hallie Ephron for allowing granting me a copy of this novel through Library Things.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    You'll Never Know, Dear by Hallie Ephron is a fast-paced and engrossing mystery that centers around the forty year disappearance of Janey Woodham.

    Every year on the anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance, Miss Sorrel Woodham runs a newspaper ad offering a reward for the return of Janey’s porcelain doll which vanished along with the long missing girl. This year, a young woman brings a doll that Miss Sorrel is certain belongs to her daughter. However, Lis Strenger, who continues to feel guilty for her sister’s disappearance, is not as convinced. That same evening, an inexplicable explosion injures both women and when Lis’s daughter Vanessa returns to the family home, she is confused to discover Miss Sorrel’s prized doll collection has been stolen.  Equally puzzling is next door neighbor and family friend Evelyn Dumont’s insistence that Miss Sorrel’s conviction the porcelain doll belongs to Janey is nothing more than wishful thinking. Lis and Vanessa decide to locate the young woman who delivered the doll but will they find the answers they are searching for?

    Lis wants nothing more than to find out the truth about what happened to Janey, so she is impatient with the local police department’s lack of urgency in locating the woman who brought them the doll. With Vanessa’s help, they quickly uncover the identity and address of the person they are searching for. Their arrival at the Maggie Richards’ home is just the first of many surprises surrounding Maggie and her mom, Jenny.

    Despite police assurance they are taking the situation seriously, Lis continues her own investigation. She is puzzled when information she uncovers is quickly contradicted by the police.  Are her results wrong? Or is there a more sinister reason for the discrepancy?  Lis cannot begin to guess who would want to interfere with the investigation but she refuses to stop searching for the truth about what happened to Janey. The discovery that another young girl connected to her mother’s porcelain doll business also disappeared years after Janey’s kidnapping is yet another shocking bit of news and Lis is determined to continue looking for the truth. How far will the perpetrator go to keep their long buried secrets from being uncovered?

    You'll Never Know, Dear is an intriguing mystery that fans of the genre will enjoy. The storyline is unusual and the creepy porcelain dolls are shudder inducing.  While it is rather easy to guess the identity of the kidnapper, the motive for the crime remains elusive.  Hallie Ephron brings this suspense-laden mystery to an action-filled, satisfying conclusion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this book through Early Reviewers, for a fair review. I found the beginning of this book to move slowly. I found Vanessa's part in the book boring. But you can't like everything. I liked the lightness of this book, I LOVED that it held suspense but wasn't in the form of a killer. I of course had my "feelings" about some things in the book, but the author went above and beyond to make everything finished. There was some surprise in certain parts that I did not see coming. Overall, a great easy read. I would recommend.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm a big fan of Ms. Ephron's work, and I'd have to say she is at the top of her game with her latest. I read it straight through in one sitting.

Book preview

You'll Never Know, Dear - Hallie Ephron

1

Elisabeth Strenger peeled three boiled eggs under running water, dropped them into a chipped Blue Willow china bowl, and began to mash them with a fork. She took a quick puff on her cigarette, blew smoke out through the back window, and tapped ashes into the drain.

Don’t forget a titch of lemon. The fluty voice that sailed in from the front porch through the open living room windows belonged to Lis’s mother, Sorrel Woodham. Everyone, including Lis, called her Miss Sorrel.

". . . A titch of lemon," Lis sang back under her breath, directing her imitation at the dolls perched on a continuous row of shelves just below the kitchen’s beamed ceiling. Miss Sorrel had begun placing dolls there back in the day when she had no trouble hopping up on a chair to do so. Now Lis did the hopping for both of them, along with any light and heavy lifting that needed doing around the house.

Miss Sorrel’s dolls stared ahead, impassive, miffed perhaps that Lis never lavished them with more than perfunctory attention. At one end of the shelf were Victorian dolls with bisque heads, creamy complexions, glass eyes, Cupid’s bow mouths, and stiff wigs. At the other end sat bald, celluloid baby dolls, placid and patient, their painted eyes forever open. Once a week Miss Sorrel supervised as Lis climbed from the chair to the table so she could give each doll a thorough dusting.

The kitchen dolls were not Miss Sorrel’s best. Her Madame Alexander Alice in Wonderland with a hand-painted cloth face and yellow-yarn wig was tucked in beside a pair of rare Cherokee rag dolls in a pair of glass china cabinets in the dining room where the rest of her rarest and most valuable dolls resided. Also in a dining room cabinet was a shelf of porcelain dolls Lis’s mother had made herself—Miss Sorrel dolls, as they were known to collectors. Their bodies were soft, and the legs and arms unglazed bisque porcelain. But their heads were why the Miss Sorrel dolls were considered art, albeit folk art: each face was a carefully sculpted and painted portrait of a real child. The Miss Sorrel dolls were as valued for their eerily realistic features as for their scarcity. The first ones had been portraits of Lis and her sister, Janey.

Though Miss Sorrel had long ago given up making Miss Sorrel dolls, she kept herself busy with the projects: temporary residents, aged and injured dolls that had been brought to her to be repaired and refreshed. Those were carefully wrapped in acid-free paper and tucked into plastic bins, each doll catalogued and shelved in the workroom at the back of the house. There, Miss Sorrel worked with her longtime friend and next-door neighbor Evelyn Dumont to gently restore them. The women went through mounds of Q-tips cleaning them. Restringing legs and arms, reweaving and sometimes replacing wigs, resetting glass eyes, de-stinking plastic bodies, and doing whatever else was needed while preserving each doll’s authenticity.

Binty, Miss Sorrel’s aging Irish setter, wheezed hot doggie breath on Lis’s ankles. Miss Sorrel used to brush Binty and save the dog’s once rich, lustrous strawberry-blond hair to make wigs for dolls.

Lis tossed Binty a crust of bread and turned her attention to chopping celery and green onion. Added them to the eggs along with mayonnaise, a shake of mustard, and yes, though she didn’t need to be reminded, a squeeze of lemon. She mixed it all together, added salt and pepper, then scooped a dollop onto a finger and tasted before assembling sandwiches, cutting them in quarters, and stacking them on a plate along with a half-dozen strawberries she’d picked up at the Piggly Wiggly. Local berries wouldn’t be in for another eight weeks or so.

Lis took off her reading glasses, anchored them to the top of her head, and carried the plate out onto the porch. It was an unusually warm January day, warm enough to sit out. A spectacular pair of camellia bushes bloomed in the front yard, one loaded with hot pink blossoms and the other white. The ground beneath the bushes was thick with periwinkle. In a matter of weeks, the air would be heavy with the sweet scent of wisteria that would hang from the sinewy vines that draped gracefully across the front of the porch, and by May mosquitoes could be so thick that sitting on the porch would be a nonstarter.

A police cruiser emblazoned with BONSECOURS POLICE in peacock-blue lettering across the side slowed as it approached the house. Lis stepped across to block her mother’s view. The cruiser window rolled down and Deputy Police Chief Frank Ames waved.

It wasn’t so much that Miss Sorrel didn’t approve of Lis’s seeing Frank, because she probably did, despite the fact that Frank was turning sixty and Lis was forty-six. He’d been a family friend since Lis was little, ever since he was a rookie on the police force. It was more that Lis cherished what little privacy she had in what was still a small town, living as she was under the same roof as her mother with her mother’s best friend, gossipy busybody Evelyn Dumont, right next door.

The cruiser continued past as Miss Sorrel rocked gently in the glider and sipped sweet tea from a glass dripping condensation. With her powdered face, spots of rouge on each cheek, and lipstick carefully painted on, Miss Sorrel was starting to look like one of the porcelain dolls she so prized. That, despite the un-doll-like creases that ran from the corners of her lips down either side of her chin, the crinkles that radiated from the corners of her eyes, and the skin that had started to lose its grip on her fine-boned skull.

Lis set the plate of sandwiches down on a metal TV table.

Lovely, Miss Sorrel said. Thank you, darling.

Darling. Never Elisabeth or Lis or Lissie. Safer not to risk Janey’s name popping out.

Lis had been seven years old when her four-year-old sister Janey disappeared. One minute the two girls had been playing outside. Now stay in the yard. Lis supposedly watching Janey and resenting it. Be a good girl and do what Lissie tells you. Wondering why her brothers Davey or Sam or Michael never got saddled with babysitting. How come you always get to be the mommy? Bedding their doll babies in shoe boxes under their picnic-table house.

A black-and-white puppy with floppy ears had scampered through the yard. Lis took off after it into the patch of woods behind the house until she lost sight of the white tip of its tail down by the creek. There she waded into the shallow water, turning over rocks, looking for frogs and yellow-spotted salamanders. She remembered thinking: Doll babies need pets.

She’d tried to catch fish in her shoe but the water leaked out. Butterflies flitted past her grasp. When she returned with her arms loaded with forget-me-nots and Spanish moss to line their shoe box doll cribs, Lis assumed Janey had gone into the house, taking her doll with her. That meant precious minutes ticked by without anyone raising the alarm.

Hope of finding out what happened to Janey had long ago faded, and yet still the shadow of her absence hung over the house, though the only physical reminders were photographs and Janey’s unaltered bedroom, with a single electric Christmas candle perpetually switched on in its front window.

Miss Sorrel and Lis’s father, Wayne Woodham, whom everyone called Woody, had taken great pains to assure Lis that Janey’s disappearance was not her fault. But even then, Lis knew better. And if she had the power to lose Janey, then surely she had the power to bring her back. She used to stand in the upstairs hall with her hand on the doorknob to Janey’s room, imagining that it was a displaced magic bedknob from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They had a videotape of the movie, and Lis would play and replay the bit where Angela Lansbury’s character casts a spell. Lis tried to repeat the syllables that sounded like gibberish: hell born hen bane, a-go-night.

She’d hold on to the doorknob. Imagine it getting warm and glowing pink, her sister’s favorite color. Then she’d push open the door and there Janey would be, safe and sound, asleep in her bed.

Even now, the incantation flew through her head whenever she was about to go into the room that would always and forever be Janey’s room.

Lis learned a hard lesson: look away for a moment and the thing you cherish most in this world could be . . . would be . . . snatched from you. The real beneficiary of this hard-won wisdom was Lis’s daughter, Vanessa, whom Lis had smothered with vigilance. It had taken a supreme act of will for Lis to look away as Vanessa biked up and down the block, or walked three doors down to play with her best friend, or waited for the school bus without Lis glued to her side.

Now it took that same willpower for Lis not to think about what could happen to Vanessa living in that apartment in that not-great neighborhood outside of Providence, finishing a postdoc and working god-awful hours at that sleep lab. It helped a bit when Lis reminded herself that her daughter was poised on the cusp of the kind of career that Lis hadn’t known she could dream about.

Lis tamped down the anxiety that flared whenever she thought about Vanessa. She’d texted her daughter earlier that morning, two hours ago. Two hours, that was about as long as it had taken for them to realize Janey was missing. It was all Lis could do to keep from texting Vanessa again. Poking at her until she got a response. Any response that signaled safe, for now.

Miss Sorrel tucked a wisp of her white hair into the long braid she’d coiled in a figure eight, anchored at the nape of her neck, then reached across for a sandwich, knocking over the stack. Oh dear, she said, her hand fluttering over the plate. She’d been like that, jumpy, since yesterday. But that was to be expected. After all, yesterday was Remembering Day, the anniversary of the day Janey disappeared almost forty years ago.

Did you have a good night’s sleep? Lis asked, handing Miss Sorrel a sandwich. Anything bothering you, dear?

Miss Sorrel ignored the question and nibbled off a corner of the sandwich. Then another nibble and another, daintily licking her fingers when there was none left and reaching for another sandwich. Her appetite hadn’t flagged in the slightest even as she shrank. Then she sighed heavily and settled back into the glider, briefly admiring the cameo ring she always wore. The ring was carved with the delicate figure of a slender woman wearing a semitransparent gown. It had been Lis’s grandmother’s, and it was one of the few things of her mother’s that she hoped would one day be hers.

For a few moments Lis and Miss Sorrel sat in companionable silence, broken only by the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. A horse-drawn wagon with tourists tucked in under carriage blankets moved slowly past. Miss Sorrel’s nostrils flared. That overripe barnyard smell and the curious gazes of tourists and their cameras were the price one paid for living in Bonsecours’s gracious historic district.

Momma, should we go inside? Lis said.

Too late. Miss Sorrel fanned the air with an open hand. My sensibilities have already been—she paused for a moment as a white compact car pulled up in front of the house, its front fender dented and trunk lid held down with a bungee cord—assaulted.

The car sat there for a few moments, its engine wheezing before it shut down. The woman who climbed out wore tight jeans, a V-neck flowered T-shirt, and sunglasses. The getup said eighteen but the face said closing on thirty. With a practiced gesture she tossed back long dark hair that hung past her shoulders, leaned on the open car door, and gazed across at the house. At Lis and Miss Sorrel watching her from the porch.

She’s early, dammit, Miss Sorrel said under her breath as she levered herself from the chair and waved. Evelyn’s not even here. Evelyn Dumont lived in the grand pink house next door on a big corner lot. The house had wide verandas in front on both floors, and narrow third-floor windows that seemed to peer out from below the eaves. Evelyn and Miss Sorrel had been making and repairing dolls together since before Lis could remember. Girlhood friends who were both now widowed, as they’d aged they’d grown more or less attached at the hip.

Miss Richards? Hello there, Miss Sorrel warbled as she gestured to Lis to get rid of the sandwich platter. She adjusted the scarf around her neck. Come right on up.

The woman, who looked far too unfinished to be Miss anything, reached into the backseat. She pulled a paper shopping bag and a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup from her car, straightened, and bumped the door closed with her hip. She tugged down her top, which had ridden up, exposing a roll of flesh bunched over low-riding jeans.

Miss Sorrel’s typical clients were older women who arrived in church clothes, their injured or simply aging dolls swaddled in blankets or packed in boxes with tissue paper. Not this one. She was swinging that bag, oblivious to the coffee that was dribbling onto it from the cup as she climbed the steps to the porch. As Miss Richards approached the steps, Lis could tell the moment when her mother could actually see her because that’s when her expression soured from welcoming to eau de manure. And then, because of her excellent manners, her mother turned up the corners of her mouth in a bright smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Lis knew what was coming next. She went inside and sponged down the kitchen table. Then she lay down a yellow swaddle blanket and a fresh pair of purple latex gloves for her mother to wear when she examined the doll.

Miss Sorrel and Miss Richards came in, followed by Binty. The low-ceilinged kitchen felt claustrophobic as it filled with Miss Richards’s cloyingly sweet perfume smell—gardenia squared. The woman set the bag on the table and shoved away Binty, who was trying to bury her nose in the woman’s crotch. Was that a tattoo on the small of her back? Lis only got a quick peek, but it looked like Harley-Davidson eagle wings.

Darling, would you get my logbook? Miss Sorrel said.

Lis walked through the passageway to her mother’s workroom. She flipped the light switch and banks of fluorescent lights that hung low over a pair of worktables tinked to life. On one table lay an aging hard plastic doll and a can of fixative, its chemical smell lingering in the air. From a drawer Lis pulled out the aging theme book in which doll repairs were carefully logged. She also picked up the digital camera. Every doll that came into the house was photographed and catalogued.

When Lis returned to the kitchen, Miss Sorrel had opened the woman’s bag and was peering inside. Her face was so white that the spots of rouge on her cheeks stood out like a clown’s face paint.

Lis set the theme book on the table and turned on the camera. Miss Sorrel looked across at her, startled. She cleared her throat. Thank you, darling. I’ll take care of it. She put out her hand and Lis gave her the camera. Why don’t you take Binty for a walk? She’s been cooped up all morning.

In fact, Binty had been out most of the morning, and when Evelyn wasn’t there to assist Miss Sorrel with a client, Lis usually stayed and took notes. But Lis took her cue. She grabbed a plastic bag in case Binty had more business to do and hooked her hand in Binty’s collar.

We’ll be right outside. Give a holler if you need me, Lis said.

At the door she looked back. Miss Richards had taken off her sunglasses. The harsh light cast dark shadows around her eyes, and she seemed tense as Miss Sorrel pulled a baby doll from the bag and set it on the table. The curls in its wig were sparse. Its porcelain face was heavily soiled, and one of its arms was missing. Its once-white hand-embroidered dress was matted and torn, and its glass eyes were cloudy.

Miss Sorrel normally turned down repair work on a doll that far gone. So why was she pulling on her gloves and turning the doll over and examining it so carefully, reverentially even?

2

Lis held open the door for Binty and followed the dog out onto the porch. The screen door slapped shut behind them. Binty hesitated at the top of the steps and whined. Lis picked the dog up and carried her down. Binty arched her neck and slurped Lis’s nose, then stutter-stepped to the curb and lowered her behind, her back legs trembling.

Lis approached Miss Richards’s car. She ran a finger along the fender, leaving a white streak in a coating that was the color of the toadstools that grew in the yard where an oak had been blown over by Hurricane Charley. Lucky for Miss Richards, car inspections were considered government overreach in South Carolina, because that car would never have passed muster in New Jersey. The license plate said it all: POJNK. Was it a vanity plate or just serendipitous irony?

Lis circled the car. There was a sticker on the back window. She lowered her glasses so she could see what it said. University of South Carolina. A student? Or maybe an employee.

Lis sat on one of the wide porch steps. She gazed back at the house she’d moved back into when she’d split with Brad. Vanessa had just turned four. Since then Lis had grown more tolerant of her mother’s quirks and limitations, her perfect hair and calibrated judgments.

Miss Sorrel had never been a particularly warm or physically affectionate mother to Lis, but she’d made up for that with the care and attention she’d lavished on Vanessa. Vanessa had been desperately upset, bewildered at having to leave their nice split-level suburban home in New Jersey and her friends. Lis hadn’t been able to see beyond her own anger at Brad. Child support dried up barely a year after the divorce, so Lis had had no choice but to come home. Tail between her legs, she’d crawled back to Bonsecours. She’d told herself it was temporary.

Miss Sorrel had thrown herself into taking care of Vanessa. Maybe it was because having Vanessa and Lis there helped her feel less alone after Woody’s death. Or maybe it was Miss Sorrel’s second chance—Vanessa had been the same age as Janey when she’d disappeared. With her fine fair hair and pale complexion, Vanessa resembled Janey. Whatever the reason, Miss Sorrel went to every one of Vanessa’s dance recitals, school plays, track meets, and softball games. Came with Lis to Augusta to cheer Vanessa on as she pitched her team to a Dixie League district championship.

She’s no trouble at all, Miss Sorrel used to say of Vanessa, even when Vanessa was a surly, hormone-riddled teen. It’s as if God sent her to me.

Of course God had nothing to do with the reason Lis had had to move home. It was Brad who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Lis still stung with humiliation remembering the phone call that ended her marriage. She couldn’t even recall why she’d called Brad at work that day. The receptionist had answered. Brad was on the phone. Did Lis want to wait? They’d gotten to chatting, as they often did. Brad’s job had him frequently tied up on the phone.

You always sound so nice, Mrs. Strenger. Then there’d been a long pause. Later Lis wondered if the woman had stopped to consider what she was about to do, the thing that put a hairpin turn in Vanessa’s life. I can connect you now, she’d said with a little too much forced cheer, or so it seemed in retrospect. Click.

Then Mmmmm, that sounds . . . interesting. A woman’s soft, warm voice. We’ll have to try it that way. Lis had felt herself flush and she almost hung up, thinking there’d been a mistake.

But the chuckling she heard in response was oh so familiar. Then the voice she knew by heart said, Think about it. Maybe sometime this weekend? I’ll call you if I can escape.

I miss you.

I miss you, too, Honey Buns.

Honey Buns? Lis had stared openmouthed at the receiver. Honey Buns was Brad’s pet name for Lis. Later she laughed about it—she’d always known the guy hadn’t an original thought in his pea brain. But at the time, she’d found herself on her knees, doubled over and silently sobbing, the receiver on the floor beside her.

Weeks later she was in the kitchen of the house she and Brad had already put on the market, her hands coated in newsprint as she bubble-wrapped martini glasses that she’d much rather have been smashing into their faux fireplace, packing for the move into a smaller house that soon she wouldn’t be able to afford.

She still couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Never questioned the long runs Brad took. Never suspected something was up when he’d come home after an hour and a half looking flushed but barely winded and proclaiming himself too sweaty and stinky for her to get near him. Heading straight for the shower.

A week after that fatal phone call, she’d followed Brad when he went out for his run. Six blocks from the house, he ducked into a phone booth. Made a call. Came out and waited until a red Mustang pulled up.

He was so damned sure of himself, so focused on smoothing his hair and sucking in his gut as he waited, he didn’t notice Lis standing out in the open, brazenly watching him from under a tree across the street. When the door of the Mustang had opened, Crystal Gayle’s torchy voice pulsed from inside. After Brad got in and the car took off, Lis was stuck with the sound of good-bye in her head.

And that was the beginning of the end, or the beginning of a new beginning as Miss Sorrel tried to reassure her. But then, her mother had always been at best lukewarm about Brad. All I want is for you to be happy.

Well, Lis hadn’t been particularly happy with Brad. But was she any happier without him? She glanced back at the house where she’d lived with her mother for the last twenty years. Lis was grateful for the home her mother had opened up to them, grateful for the job she’d been able to step into when Miss Sorrel gave up managing Woody’s Charters. She was even more grateful that her mother never once rubbed her nose in her own neediness. It was only lately that she felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if her mother and this house with a hole in it that would never heal over were suction-cupped to her chest.

Binty hoisted herself and scratched at the ground. Gazed up at Lis with those soulful eyes and wagged her tail. A dog’s life seemed a much more straightforward affair, Lis thought. She bent over, scratched Binty’s chin, and nuzzled the dog’s forehead.

Just then there was a cry from the house and Miss Richards burst out onto the porch, her long hair flying.

Miss Sorrel pressed up against the screen door. Come back here, you . . . you . . . this very instant. Please—her voice turned plaintive—come back.

As Miss Richards blew past Lis, the woman tripped over her own feet and went sprawling. Binty came at her, snapping and snarling as she scrambled upright. Binty, who’d never so much as snapped at a squirrel. Lis grabbed the dog’s collar and held her back.

Miss Sorrel came out and stood on the porch. She was holding the doll. You have to tell me. Where did you get this?

I told you. I found it.

Where? When? Please. You have to— Miss Sorrel started down the stairs.

Keep away. The woman backed away.

Within arm’s reach now, Miss Sorrel held the doll out to her. Pleading. Who gave it to you?

No one.

Then who sent you here? Miss Sorrel shoved the doll into the woman’s chest.

No one sent me! The woman jerked the doll free from Miss Sorrel’s hands. Leave me alone. She raised the doll and threw it against a brick porch step. It landed face-first with a sickening crack.

The woman pushed past Miss Sorrel, ran for her car, got in, and slammed the door. Miss Sorrel went over and beat on the side window. "Where did you get it? Please. I have to

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