What Happens Next

2024 Carol Award Winner

"An uplifting story of faith, hope, and healing."--Booklist

"Everyone has a story, and maybe everyone needs a little help toward healing."

Popular podcaster and ex-reporter Faith Byrne made a name for herself telling stories of greatness after tragedy--but her real life does not mirror the stories she tells. While her daughters spend the summer in Hawaii with her ex-husband and his new wife, she must manage life on her own. All of that changes when she's asked to spotlight her childhood best friend's missing person case on her podcast.

Dora Crane has never accepted that her younger daughter could be dead, keeping her home looking the same as when her daughter disappeared. But when her husband leaves her and her older daughter intervenes, she agrees to counseling and to pack up her missing daughter's belongings under one condition: Faith Byrne comes to Deep Valley and sheds light on the cold case.

As the long-abandoned investigation moves forward, old wounds and long-buried secrets are exposed. Will these two women, whose lives have never been the same, finally get the answers they need to reconcile the past and the future?

"This heartbreaking story will keep you guessing--and hoping--with the turn of every redemptive page."--ERIN BARTELS, award-winning author of The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water