Unspeakable Things - Jess Lourey

Written by Jess Lourey
Read by Caitlin Kelly
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Inspired by a terrifying true story, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota town where nothing is as quiet - or as safe - as it seems.

Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents’ strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she’s grown accustomed to them.
All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale.

One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed - violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of whose responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets start to surface. Then Cassie’s own sister undergoes the dark change. If she is to survive, Cassie must find her way in an adult world where every sin is justified, and only the truth is unforgivable.

Unspeakable crimes, unpauseable suspense
“Accomplished author Jess Lourey drew on one of her childhood’s defining memories—the famous abduction of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling in Paynesville, Minnesota—to craft this intensely suspenseful and haunting novel. Told from the perspective of 12-year-old Cassie McDowell, it starts as a coming-of-age tale set in the 1980s—think Trapper Keepers, Pac-Man, and references to “Chester the Molester.” But as that last one suggests, the dread creeps in fast. Something isn’t right in the McDowell family…or their town, where boys start to disappear and then return, their changed demeanors hinting at shocking trauma. Lourey is a master at building unrelenting suspense, and prolific narrator Caitlin Kelly delivers an excellent portrayal of Cassie’s ordeal—and the process by which an entire community comes to terms with its deep, collective grief.”