“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Rowan Is Brilliant. Brilliant on a level that Einstein didn’t approach, but Da Vinci may have shared. That kind of brilliance makes it hard enough to bond with ‘normals’ under the best of circumstances. Add in parents who saw her as an interesting experiment, homeschooling her and discouraging any outside hobbies, interest, or friends, and living a normal life is pretty much an impossibility of stunning proportions. But, when Rowan meets Lexi in college, her life changes. Lexi teaches her ‘social studies.’ How to talk to people. How to smile. How to have fun. How to be human.

But then, Lexi disappeared. And Rowen’s life was shattered. The pieces that Lexi had nurtured fell away, leaving the cold, precise, analytical Rowen behind. It hurts to be so broken. So, she analyzes. She analyzes at work, putting together business strategies for the customers of Hologram Security. She analyzes everything, researching, investigating, plotting and graphing everything that strikes her fancy. But especially missing persons, and Lexi’s disappearance. She even researches dating strategies when her friend, Farrah Lewis, whom she met in a support group for friends and family members of missing persons, asks. For six long years, ever since the day Lexi disappeared, Rowan has functioned like an analytical droid, living for her work, for her analysis. For the faint hope that one day she will find the thread that will bring Lexi back to her. Rowan is The Bloodhound, sniffing out facts and presenting them to her clients in the form of cold logic. Just as coldly logical as her life is lived.

And then one day, Harrison Briggs appears in her office. And all the pain comes rushing back. For Harrison Briggs is Lexi’s boyfriend. Was the last person to see her alive on that terrible day, when Lexi disappeared, and Rowan’s whole life imploded. Harrison Briggs, who has the gall to stand in front of her and swear that he didn’t attend Columbia. That he has never heard of Lexi. What kind of monster can do that? To stand in front of her and deny his relationship with the one person Rowan loved above all others? How Could He?

But things are even stranger than she thought. And what is true may very well cost Rowan her life.

I adored Rowan and her story. Mystery. Suspense. Convolutions. This a very well written, enjoyable book that kept me reading for way too long into the night. She is brilliant, but in such pain. Watching what has become of her psyche due to her parents cold scientific parenting is heartbreaking, and her ability to grow and change through the book gave me heart. Her search for her friend, and the pain of all family and friends of missing persons, is extremely well written. Highly recommended.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a realistic review. This is Randa Flannery’s first book and I will be watching closely for her next.