Two mothers are separated by circumstance—one entitled and privileged, the other barely surviving her nasty divorce. Two eight-year-old boys at the same private school connect the strikingly different families. The disappearance of one son will test both mothers' courage. Kat Jenkins is frightened awake at three in the morning by a policeman banging on her door. Her son Ethan has vanished from a woodland camp, where his class traveled for an overnight field trip. Other than her sometimes violent soon-to-be ex-husband, Kat can't imagine who would take her little boy. But soon, a stranger calls Stef Huntington, the mayor's wife, and tells her that he has her son Sammy, a classmate of Ethan's, who could almost be a look-alike, threatening to kill the boy if his demands aren't met. Was the kidnapping a mix-up? With terror drawing much closer to each family than they realize, how far must each mother go to protect her child? VERDICT Readers who were riveted by Belle's The Marriage Lie will be entertained by this suspenseful tale of love, jealousy, guilt, and betrayal. [See Prepub Alert, 12/11/17.]—K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX

Kat Jenkins's son Ethan disappears on an overnight school trip, but another mother—the mayor's wife, whose child is safe—receives the ransom demand. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

For Kat Jenkins, the first narrator of this gripping novel of suspense from Belle (The Marriage Lie), her eight-year-old son, Ethan, is the only good thing to come out of her marriage to her physically and emotionally abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband, Andrew Maddox. The morning after she sees Ethan off on an overnight class trip to the gold rush town of Dahlonega, Ga., she's awoken by the police with the news that Ethan is missing. Meanwhile, Stef, the second narrator and the wife of Atlanta mayor Sam Huntington, gets a call from someone claiming to have taken her son Sammy, who is on the same trip and resembles Ethan. Sammy is fine, but he may hold clues to Ethan's whereabouts, if Stef can pry them out of him. Belle does a masterful job of building tension as the search for Ethan gains steam toward the somewhat predictable conclusion, and she credibly highlights the economic and social divide between the upscale Huntingtons and Kat, who struggles at vindictive Andrew's mercy. Readers will be glad to get to know these two very different, yet equally strong women. Agent: Nikki Terpilowski, Holloway Literary. (June)