Weft

It's been a year since Bridget and her teenage son have been home. Living in motel rooms, they now drive from shopping mall to shopping mall, posing as casting directors on the lookout for kids with star potential-that is, kids with parents too eager for fame to notice they're being conned. But on Halloween weekend, Bridget's pursuit of a mark leads them to a haunted house deep in a gated community, where her lies will endanger them both and threaten to extinguish any hope of returning home.

Weft unravels Bridget's twisting, furtive life with precision and dynamism. Kevin Allardice's prose is sensorial: It's vivid enough to touch and astonishing enough to quicken your pulse. Allardice has delivered a novel that will leave its crescent nail marks on us long after we've boxed up and returned our skeletons to the closet.