The Hushwood calls.

On the edge of the Hushwood Forest sits a … quiet … town deep in the heart of Poland. It’s a town with delicious piernik, a single chapel with a fully-immersed priest. It’s a town with unique festivals and old, old songs. It’s a place of familiarity – because no one steps out of line, no one questions the rules, no one is extraordinary. For Myreska, this is safe.

But not all is as it appears.

Silhouettes are about the invisible being visible — and that is one of the bigger themes from WHISPERROOT: A HUSHWOOD TALE. Beneath the friendly-looking exterior, the town of Myreska believes girls are best seen–and unheard. When 12 girls go missing, the town accepts a comforting lie: they went to Warsaw; they ran away. The novel asks what does safety look and feel like? Can it ever become perilous?

The 12 girls who go missing do so because they are not “golden.” They speak too loudly, they test boundaries, they wear colors that are too bold… they question things that don’t make sense. While the girls share some similarities, they are as complex as complicity itself. Captivity uncovers buried secrets, tests self-esteem, redefines the meaning of freedom, and births forms of resistance that are as unique as each girl. For some, resistance is the insistence of using their voice to defy expectations. For others, silence is its own weapon as it allows them to become witnesses who slowly dismantle comfort by putting what’s been lost where it cannot be ignored.

Each Saturday of March, as we approach the book signing at Landmark Booksellers on March 28, I’ll do a “Saturday Silhouette” that examines one of the girls, highlighting some of her contradictions, strengths, and weaknesses. At the end of the month, I’ll reveal all of the silhouettes so we can see the girls in full light. The snippets read reveal how her sister sees her, how her mother feels, and how the town sees her.

The first is Ainela’s… because she wouldn’t have it any other way.