Tethered.

MacKinnon, Amy (author).

Undertaker Clara Marsh doesn’t believe in God. It’s hardly a wonder; she has had little in life to give her cause for faith. After surviving the car accident that killed her free-spirited mother, she was raised by a grandmother who beat her with a brush and tore out her hair. When Clara finally escapes her grandmother’s clutches, she enrolls in mortuary school and lands a job at a New England funeral home whose kindhearted owners take her in as their own. Clara finds herself drawn to the cold case of “Precious Doe,” an unidentified teen found murdered in the nearby woods. She senses it’s more than coincidence when a neglected young waif named Trecie appears in the funeral parlor where she works. Could Trecie be destined for the same fate as “Precious Doe”? Throughout her life, Clara has taken great pains to remain uninvolved in others’ lives. But this time it’s different. MacKinnon’s fascination with the inner workings of her uncle’s funeral business inspired this haunting, gracefully rendered debut.