From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Hand-selected books for your reading list.
Staff Pick
Rene Denfeld has always won huge support from my fellow booksellers, but this was my first time reading her. Wow! What took me so long? I really loved this tale of children lost and found. It's set in the PNW and is atmospheric, beautiful, and haunting. Recommended By Kathi K., Powells.com
Denfeld's masterful weaving of this beautiful tale moved me deeply, enveloped me in its arms and didn't let me go. Madison Culver won my heart! Recommended By Adrienne C., Powells.com
This book is beautiful and disquieting and I tried — I really tried — to savor it, but instead I devoured it in one sitting like a fool. Denfeld has a gift, and it’s more than a way with words. It’s an ability to root beauty out of dark recesses. To explore moral reprehensibility with compassion. To make the reader cringe and marvel in equal measure, and consume in hours a book they’d intended to ration out over days. I’ve honestly never encountered anything quite like it. It makes her books tricky to recommend — “Just trust me! You’ll love it!” — but I do so wholeheartedly and happily and all the time. Recommended By Tove H., Powells.com
Rene Denfeld is a writer of great perception and compassion, and her new novel, The Child Finder, is a knockout. As she slowly and steadily cranks up the tension along the trails of two missing children, Denfeld plumbs the delicate subject of child victimization with grace, depth, and complexity. As the ever-tightening plot line winds to its conclusion, we find we’ve learned wholly unexpected things about not only those who are preyed upon but also those who prey. Recommended By Gigi L., Powells.com
In Rene Denfeld’s second gorgeous novel, 5-year-old Madison disappears when her family travels to the Skookum National Forest to cut down a Christmas tree — one quick dash into the woods and she is gone without a trace. Naomi is an investigator who has an odd knack for finding lost children, having once been a lost child herself. Piecing together the missing information on this three-year-old case, Naomi may be in for more than she imagined.
Denfeld has the ability to tap the ocean of emotion inside her, and uses her spare, delicate prose, with grace and surgical precision, to deliver this stunning story. Addressing themes of home, child abuse, memory, survival, fear of intimacy, and the necessity of stories, The Child Finder is absolutely glorious. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
I was ready to have my heart broken by Rene Denfeld's The Child Finder. What I didn't expect was that by the end of the story, I felt joy and healing. A simple but remarkable telling of a world close to all of us. Recommended By Doug C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A haunting, richly atmospheric, and deeply suspenseful novel from the acclaimed author of The Enchanted about an investigator who must use her unique insights to find a missing little girl.
"Where are you, Madison Culver? Flying with the angels, a silver speck on a wing? Are you dreaming, buried under snow? Or — is it possible — you are still alive?"
Three years ago, Madison Culver disappeared when her family was choosing a Christmas tree in Oregon's Skookum National Forest. She would be eight-years-old now — if she has survived. Desperate to find their beloved daughter, certain someone took her, the Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. Known to the police and a select group of parents as "the Child Finder," Naomi is their last hope.
Naomi's methodical search takes her deep into the icy, mysterious forest in the Pacific Northwest, and into her own fragmented past. She understands children like Madison because once upon a time, she was a lost girl, too.
As Naomi relentlessly pursues and slowly uncovers the truth behind Madison's disappearance, shards of a dark dream pierce the defenses that have protected her, reminding her of a terrible loss she feels but cannot remember. If she finds Madison, will Naomi ultimately unlock the secrets of her own life?
Told in the alternating voices of Naomi and a deeply imaginative child, The Child Finder is a breathtaking, exquisitely rendered literary page-turner about redemption, the line between reality and memories and dreams, and the human capacity to survive.
Review
"A darkly luminous story of resilience and the deeply human instinct for survival, for love. Blending the magical thinking of childhood, of fairy tales, dreams, memories and nightmares, The Child Finder is a terrifying and ultimately uplifting novel that demands to be consumed and then once inside you–lingers…." A.M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven
Review
"Rene Denfeld has a gift for shining bright light in dark places. The Child Finder is a gorgeous, haunting gem of a novel. Raw and real yet wrapped in a fairy tale, as lovely and as chilling as the snow." Erin Morgenstern, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus
Review
"Intense.... Innovative... Heartbreaking, surprising.... The conclusion will leave readers breathless." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Rene Denfeld is an author, journalist, and death penalty investigator. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Oregonian, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, and is the author of four nonfiction books. The Enchanted received the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger in France.
Rene Denfeld on PowellsBooks.Blog
There is the Oregon we all love: the majestic mountains, the stunning rivers and waterfalls, and the deep, mysterious ocean. You can go from snow to desert in one day in Oregon, crossing the passes into the flinty reservations, or you can turn the other direction and find yourself with your feet in the sand, watching the waves pound the shore while the sun sets...
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