State of Grace by Sandra Moran

Description

Birdie Holloway is a typical eleven-year-old growing up in a small, corn-fed Kansas town in the early 1980s—that is until her best friend, Grace, is brutally murdered. Suddenly, everything changes for Birdie, and everything she believes she knows about her insulated small-town life is called into question. Obsessed in figuring out who killed her friend, Birdie spends years trying to find the murderer. Eventually, she connects with someone who is every bit as interested in the case as she is.

Someone who knows how close she is to solving the murder.

Someone who will kill again to keep her quiet . . .

“State of Grace is, sadly, the last beautiful, moving achievement from a woman whose wit, intelligence, and loving humanity can be felt on every page of all her books.” —George Hodgman, author of Bettyville

“State of Grace is a deftly crafted and riveting read that is unreservedly recommended for community library Mystery/Suspense collections.”—Helen Dumont, Midwest Book Review

“The detailed and concentrated exploration of a young woman’s mind reveals both the penetration of an imaginative intellect and the skill of an exemplary writer, pulling us in and keeping us pinned to the page as the story unfolds.”—Velvet Lounger, The Lesbian Reading Room

“Her writing is crisp and fresh and her descriptions are vivid . . . As I neared the end, it really hit me that we have lost quite a writer, especially a writer who knew how to treat her readers with a good story that is filled with intense suspense.”—Amos Lassen, Reviews by Amos Lassen

Sandra Moran was an author and assistant adjunct professor of anthropology at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. A native Kansan, she worked professionally as a newspaper journalist, a political speechwriter, and an archaeological tour manager. In her novels, she strived to create flawed characters struggling to find themselves within the cultural constructs of gender, religion and sexuality. Moran authored the critically acclaimed novels Letters Never Sent, Nudge, The Addendum, and All We Lack. Revisions on State of Grace, her final novel, were completed in September 2015. Less than a month later, she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. She passed away on November 7, 2015.