In captivating prose, Diane Les Becquets tells the story of one woman missing in the Colorado wilderness and another bent on discovering the missing woman’s whereabouts, in an unforgettably moving and thrilling literary debut.
It is the last weekend of the season for Amy Raye Latour to get away. Driven to spend days alone in the wilderness, Amy Raye, mother of two, is compelled by the quiet and the rush of nature. But this time, her venture into a remote area presents a different set of dangers than Amy Raye has planned for and she finds herself on the verge of the precarious edge that she’s flirted with her entire life.
When Amy Raye doesn’t return to camp, ranger Pru Hathaway and her dog respond to the missing person’s call. After an unexpected snowfall and few leads, the operation turns into a search and recovery. Pru, though, is not resigned to that. The more she learns about the woman for whom she is searching, and about Amy Raye’s past, the more she suspects that Amy Raye might yet be alive. Pru’s own search becomes an obsession for a woman whose life is just as mysterious as the clues she has left behind.
As the novel follows Amy Raye and Pru in alternating threads, Breaking Wild assumes the white-knuckled pace of a thriller laying bare Amy Raye’s ultimate reckoning with the secrets of her life, and Pru’s dogged pursuit of the woman who, against all odds, she believes she can find.
“[A] crisp, immersive novel.”—
Entertainment Weekly“A visceral book, building suspense from sensory details…A page turning, two-pronged wildlife adventure.”—
The Wall Street Journal “Saturated with atmosphere and emotionally rich characters…An astonishing and complex portrait of two strong, independent women damaged by their pasts.”—BookBrowse (5 stars)
“Compelling…[Les Becquets] writes a tightly wound novel set against a background filled with details of hunting and outdoor life.”—
The Denver Post “The sheer force of this book lies in the force of its two main characters.”—Tana French,
New York Times bestselling author of
The Secret Place “Diane Les Becquets brings to life the story of two very different and captivating women, whose worlds collide through a series of unexpected and compelling circumstances…[A] heart-wrenching tale.”—John Searles,
New York Times bestselling author of
Help for the Haunted “Harrowing yet compulsive, this novel is as wild as the landscape it portrays, and it's just as dangerous.”—Wiley Cash,
New York Times bestselling author of
This Dark Road to Mercy
“A taut and thrilling narrative…Skillfully blending the emotional terrain of women’s fiction with a briskly paced adventure story.”—
Booklist (starred review)
“Les Becquets’ prose is as spare, haunting, and nuanced as the wild landscape she brings to life…A transcendent, breathless exploration of the darkest depths of loneness and the unbreakable human spirit.”—
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A powerful story of survival, wilderness field craft, and fractured relationships packed into a suspenseful plot with more than a few surprises."—
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] thoughtful page-turner…Though this is fiction, readers who enjoyed the internal development of Cheryl Strayed’s
Wild will find a lot to like here.”—
Library Journal
