SOLVED. Crime/Mystery - Girl Thinks She's an Alien...

[Dayanara]

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Plot: ...but it turns out that it's just a coping method she was using to deal with the fact that she witnessed a murder or an arson or something. She and her dog (I think it was hers) ran off into the woods where she was taken in by the female protagonist and also taken care of by the protag's neighbor (male).

I think the protag was an ornithologist? I just remembered as I was writing that she and the girl went hunting for birds at one point and that the cabin the protag was staying in was actually owned by the school she was doing research for. I know the neighbor had to take the girl in for a night or two because the protag's colleagues were coming for a visit and she didn't want them to know she was harboring a runaway.

It seems like the girl didn't like the foster family she was placed with at the end, and the protag ended up adopting her after her study was over.

Year Read: Within the last three. I want to say last year (2018); but time flies by so fast, I can't be sure anymore.

Did it seem old? Heck no! This was a Kindle First/First Reads book. I checked my library, but I deleted it, so I have no indication of the title.

Period: Modern

Location: Illinois? I feel like they had to drive a distance to get the girl to her foster family (or aunt or whoever it was that was supposed to take her in). The cabin and the vast majority of the story were at the end of a dirt road with woods and fields and a river.

Cover: Nope

Author: Female?

Type: eBook

Country: USA

Language: English

Thanks in advance--I need the name for a GR review!

[Dayanara]

Good Goddess, it only took me NINE HOURS to think of the title! (faints)

All of a sudden, I thought of Where the Sky Meets the Stars, googled it and got the correct answer.

SHEESH! Sorry none of you could chime in! I have a book I've been chasing since I was a preteen, though so I ought to come back and post that in the near future.