After seven years, the girl in the basement has become a ghost to the rest of the world. When she finally escapes, every trace of who she used to be is gone: her home, her family, and even herself.
Joe and Tessa Holland are a young wealthy couple with no intent on ever having kids. But when their niece, Lizzie, is found trapped in a basement with another girl three months after her disappearance, they find themselves caring for a teenage girl they know nothing about.
Together, Joe and Tessa help the girl from the basement navigate the world that forgot her. But Lizzie's father's status as a star musician in Hollywood and his fame makes finding normalcy even trickier for her. Between the media circus surrounding her and Lizzie's escape, her fear of the unknown, and a traitor in their midst selling information about her life and whereabouts to the tabloids, she struggles to accept her identity and cope with her so-called "freedom."
Full list of content warnings: physical abuse, kidnapping of minors, manipulation, insinuation and mention of sexual abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, mentions of drug addiction, and homelessness.
Recognition:
- 2024 Nano Watt winner (New Adult Contemporary category)
- 2024 Starlight Mini Awards, best cover & best first chapter
- Contemporary Lit Contemporary reading list
Five years ago, sixteen-year-olds Emily and Lily Baker were rescued.
At the ages of three and eleven, respectively, they had been kidnapped and held captive by a cruel and vindictive woman whose only life goal seemed to be to torture them, leaving the two girls in a state of co-dependency and over-attachment to each other. Now they are free, but scars- both physical and mental- run deep, and even after all these years, both girls remain heavily traumatised, and Emily, being only three years old when she was taken, has no recollection of her former life before Vanessa or answers to the questions she is too afraid to ask.
Now, their ex-abductor has managed to weasel her way out of prison and Emily has the opportunity to gain the knowledge she seeks, but answers can come at the cost of hurting the ones you swore to protect...
Updates weekly (currently too busy to update weekly, but should be back soon)!
Cross-posted on Wattpad, Inkitt, Fictionstation and Royal Road.
Cover created by the amazing: @nxjlaaaina