Clear Water by Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes

Shatteringly beautiful and bracing, raw with grief and love, Clear Water is the story of a woman undone, who is still determined to avenge her losses. Seamlessly interweaving mystery, noir, myth, and horror, this singular novel is a tour de force and a warning: the lost girls of Brewer will not be forgotten.

Alma Figueroa is the first person to see a girl in white. Later, more people will claim to have seen the girls: in the snow, in the woods, in the middle of roads. The girls don’t speak, and they don’t match any of the files for the young women who have been disappearing from Brewer, Wisconsin, for years. Rumors quickly spread that these girls aren’t entirely real, that they are dangerous. But Alma knows what she saw, and she begins investigating.

Back in high school, Alma’s sister, Kayla, was a girl who disappeared, into an addiction that claimed her life. After that, Alma vowed she would never return to Brewer, but the town has always pulled her back. She fell in love with her husband here, until the darkness of their shared history overwhelmed them. As Alma’s investigation deepens, she begins to uncover secrets the community has been ignoring for too long. These secrets might be able to explain Kayla’s death and Alma’s heartbreak—if Alma can figure out what the girls are trying to tell her in time.