Before We Were Strangers by Brenda Novak

Supermodel Sloane McBride returns to her small Central Texas hometown of Millcreek to personally discover what really happened 23 years ago when her mother disappeared without a trace. At the time, the police investigation – or what passed for it – blithely accepted her father’s story that Clara McBride had just walked away from the house and marriage in the dead of night probably to join the secret lover with whom she was having an affair. But Sloane, then five, had been home that night and awake, and had heard the final altercation between her parents.

As she’d grown, Sloane relived that night over and over in her mind, and based on those memories always secretly feared that her father had murdered and hidden her mother’s body. As soon as high school graduation was over, Sloane had fled town without a word to anyone including Micah, the boy she’d been going with, and her best friend, Paige.

Sloane had gone to New York City and, luckily for her, was discovered by a kind and honest agent who launched her into a highly successful modeling career. Now at loose ends after her beloved mentor’s death, Sloane is going back home for the first time in 10 years to ferret out the truth of the night her mother disappeared.

Sloane walked out without a word on the four most important people in her life: her father, her brother, her boyfriend, and her best friend – and must confront those relationships when she’s back in town. Her father and brother believe she’s back to ruin her father, now the town’s mayor, with her suspicions. Complicating matters, Micah and Paige had gotten together after her abrupt departure, had a child, and had only recently divorced.

With Micah now a police officer in town, and her father and brother both trying to block her probing into the past, Before We Were Strangers is tense, exciting, and provides a satisfying number of twists and turns. Part mystery, part thriller, part second-chance romance, author Brenda Novak has created an engrossing novel of what happened and who done it. Readers should be entertained!