No atlas needed

I am so honored to be part of the blog tour for Sally Piper's "The Geography of Friendship"!  Thank you, Legend Press, for including me.  Please visit the other blogs on the list for more reviews!  Purchase the book from Amazon or your local bookseller.

As most people know, my primary reading consists of intense thrillers and murder mysteries.  Sally Piper has managed to create something very unique with this title.  It's got the framework of a thriller, and a mystery, but she has built the suspense in such a way that it's incredibly slow-burning and satisfying.  

Schoolyard friends Lisa, Nicole, and Samantha reunite after decades apart to revisit a hiking trail that contains ominous memories for all of them.  Although life has changed for all of them, they share an intense bonding experience.  For most of the book, we don't know exactly what that experience is, as the story is told in alternating timelines (then and now, in the same mountain setting).  As intriguing as that aspect of the book is, the most enjoyable part for me was how Piper has depicted the incomparable bonds of friendship that women form.  Our lives are often so overburdened with expectations and responsibilities that we often lose our grip on the friendships we formed when we were young and free, but the tensile strength of these friendships can be restored almost instantly once we reconnect.  Throughout the book, Piper's haunting, descriptive prose proves that no matter where life takes us, shared tragedy and love are strong enough to bring us back together again when the time is right.

If you're looking for a fast-paced thriller, this one might not be for you.  For me, the slow building of suspense is what made it compulsively readable.  Not knowing what really happened that fateful day when they were younger is unfurled so slowly and satisfyingly, while lined up against the present day events, that it left me with my heart in my throat waiting to see how the timelines and events would eventually coalesce.  The attention to detail and the thoughtful descriptions of nature were also very endearing to me, and managed to paint a complete picture so that I felt like I had stepped into the woods with these women.  What will we find?  I suppose you'll have to read it yourself to find out.