Dear Reader, I’m Listening

"Dear Reader, I'm Listening"

She's listening for the voices of the vanished. But the architect of their silence is listening, too.

The haunting secrets of Ashwood & Sons continue in the riveting second novel of the Dear Reader: The Ashwood Novels series. She thought she knew her mother's story, but the apology was just the beginning...

Six months after discovering her mother Rose's hidden life-and her final, cryptic message-Clara Ashwood is trying to forge a new existence running the family bookstore. But the fragile peace is shattered by anonymous letters from women hinting at a truth far darker than Rose's sonnets revealed. Signed only by initials, they speak of others like Eliza Grey-bright young women who became inconvenient and were systematically "collected" and removed from Ashwood under the guise of opportunity.

As Clara investigates these "buried voices," aided by the town's disgraced ex-journalist Eli Barnes, whose own past holds troubling secrets, a popular local student vanishes after researching Rose's work, mirroring Eliza's fate two decades earlier. An underground network of safe houses emerges from the shadows, casting Rose's actions in a new light, even as Clara receives chilling warnings targeting her trust in Eli.

Forced into hiding and hunted by forces determined to protect Ashwood's gilded facade, Clara must race to decipher clues left in a lockbox, decrypt damning audio files, and navigate shifting alliances-including the enigmatic wife of her prime suspect. The conspiracy runs deeper than she ever imagined, stretching far beyond Ashwood's borders, proving that listening for the truth is even more dangerous than uncovering the initial lie.