COME AWAY FROM HER is a boldly written mystery-suspense novel set in the rural town of Black Walnut. The story revolves around the arrival of Tess, a deaf woman running from her past, who unwittingly sets into motion a chain of disturbing events as she is forced to share her secrets with the strangers around her. Her presence upsets the status quo for the townspeople, none more so than for Cap, the pastor of the local church whose life has been marred by substance abuse and tragedy. The morning that Cap discovers a dead body outside the church, life as the town knows it is forever changed.
In the vein of Big Little Lies, the identity of the victim is concealed until the climatic end of the story, but everyone in town, including Cap, has a motive. There is Maggie, an unmoored woman who numbs reality with pharmaceuticals and strange crimes; Wade, whose philandering ways are town gossip; Butch, a teenager struggling over his parent’s divorce and his own identity; and Robin, who is desperate for a way out of her marriage to Chuck, a violent man driven by ignorance and self-loathing.
Written in Gailey’s critically-acclaimed style described by the NY Times as “Beautiful and brutal,” portrays its characters with compelling nuances, peeling back layer after layer until we discover the truth about the murder and its aftermath in a series of brilliant twists.
