There’s a lullaby for suffering.

57. The Forgotten Girls – Sara Blaedel

I was browsing in a book store’s mystery section after being disappointed I couldn’t find the rest of a YA series I was trying to read when I noticed the font on the side of several Blaedel books and pulled one out. So, I know I talk a lot about book covers and fonts and frankly, there’s a lot to be desired. Much sameyness. And I was not a fan of that cheap trend of putting some random staring girl’s face on the cover of YA books. Why did they stick so many placid, vacantly staring teen girls into the void? WHY? However, I have found the cover trope that attracts me and forced me to slightly swallow my pride. The covers of all of the Blaedel books I’ve found that I actually like feature really tall trees (Yay Scandanavian and Nordic forests! Some of the few places I might actually be able to go outside on purpose for a while and not die of allergies due to their climate…although that’s changing…) and some random woman in a rain coat with her back to the viewer. Lookin’ lost in tall trees, that’s the ticket. I do like all of the mysteries and thrillers I’ve read from authors from Iceland and Denmark now, they’re so bleak it’s amazing.

Once I started reading The Forgotten Girls, it became very clear that Blaedel is someone whose books I must read all of – definitely bleak in a variety of ways, the investigating is in-depth and involved records and primary source materials, the crimes are horrible and in this one involved administrative chicanery in an institution for unwanted/potentially “embarrassing” children. So I went back to the book store and got all the ones I could find, then found the other ones with the right kind of covers – What was that chick lit bullshit in a lit up field on “The Daughter,” which is supposed to be called The Undertaker’s Daughter according to the ARC? Excuse me, no. That is not okay. – and ordered the rest on Abe Books. I did this BEFORE finding out that Louise Rick’s partner in the Special Search Agency listens to Nick Cave. BEFORE. These books are precisely my kind of reading.

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I also deeply adored read-watching Jordskott. It was just about perfect for me and Pere and Finny post-Critical Care feeding.