4.25/5⭐️

Theo Buchanan is really good at her job as a Park Ranger. That’s because she has the best track record in finding missing persons. Her motivation? Years prior, as a young teenager, instead of taking care of her sister Flora, she left her at the grocery store and directed her to get back home. However, Flora never made it home and it seems like the forest just swallowed her whole.

Packed with guilt, grief, obsession and alcohol, Theo works hard to find as many missing people in hopes of finding her sister or some information about her sister.

Now, more people are going missing, more stranger objects are being found in the forest and strange happenings are occurring. With help of her best friend Quinn, her backstabbing ex lover Delilah, a conspiracy theorist and a former member of a government agency no one knows about, they embark of finding out what is happening, is Flora still alive and what is the Bureau of Reality up to.

This novel got going immediately and never stopped. There was a bit of stalling at around 30% that has a transition from spooky to supernatural and it was not smooth. Cause some confusion. But it picks up and I’m glad I stuck around.

One of my fave parts is the backdrop of the West Virginia Appalachian Mountains and cave system. It tackles the stories of the staircases and random doors seen in the middle of the forest. Cryptids that have human and animal features and the disappearances.

This book is an episode out of the XFiles.

Thank you netgalley, quill & crow publishing house and Megan Bontrager for the opportunity to read this novel