REVIEW: OPEN HOUSE, BY KATIE SISE

 

A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked in-to the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister, Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.

Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.

Open House is a tale of a missing girl and the friends who each have pieces of information about the moments leading to the ten-year-old event.

Emma’s sister Haley, a med student; her fiancé, Dean; and her college roommate Josie and her husband Noah, are all part of the mystery. Brad and Priya also have bits of information.Our story alternates between the past and the present, narrated by the various characters.

Discovering what really happened on the night Emma went missing slowly comes together ten years afterwards, and I was stunned by all who were culpable in some way. 4.5 stars.