In the Lonely Backwater

In the Lonely Backwater

All seventeen-year-old Maggie Warshauer wants is to leave her stifled life in Filliyaw Creek behind and head to college. An outsider at school and uncertain of her own sexual identity, Maggie longs to start again somewhere new. Inspired by a long-dead biologist’s journals, scientific-minded Maggie spends her days sailing, exploring, and categorizing life around her. But when her beautiful cousin Charisse disappears on prom night and is found dead at the marina where Maggie lives, Maggie’s plans begin to unravel. A mysterious stranger begins stalking her and a local detective on the case leaves her struggling to hold on to her secrets—her father’s alcoholism, her mother’s abandonment, a boyfriend who may or may not exist, and her own actions on prom night. As the detective gets closer to finding the truth, and Maggie’s stalker is closing in, she is forced to comes to terms with the one person who might hold the answers—herself. "In tight, yet poetic prose, wasting not a word or a sentence, Nieman skillfully takes readers into the life of a young woman tumultuously standing on womanhood's edge and creates a Southern mystery sure to intrigue." Portland Review "Maggie Warshauer, the 17-year-old main character in Valerie Nieman's intriguing new mystery , In the Lonely Backwater , may go down in literary history as one of the most memorable unreliable narrators since Rachel Watson in Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train ." Chapter 16 "This novel is an intricate and intriguing work of art. Its intricacies are not mere twists of plot line; they are necessary and inevitable. They define, redefine, in a serious manner the term, mystery." StorySouth "With gorgeous description and elegant prose, Nieman transforms a North Carolina village and marina into a haunting character in this fine literary novel. Readers who enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing will love this story and its likeable teen protagonist, Maggie Warshauer. Beautifully written and perfectly paced, In the Lonely Backwater is a great choice for book clubs." Southern Literary Review "Nieman's novel starts off like a gritty noir, with first-person narrator Maggie Warshauer revealing some of what she knows about her cousin Charisse Swicegood and dropping early hints that she has something to hide. The violent events of the fated night leading up to Charisse's death unfold as a capable detective pieces together the tragedy...Maggie's observations—informed by her fascination with Linnaeus and his classification of species—are carefully revealed....(her) confidence brims with a mature bravado but often clashes with her negative physical self-descriptions. Themes of sexual awakening are raised; they drip with phrasing that conflates desire, regret, confusion, and fantasy as Maggie wrestles with internalized shame." Kirkus Reviews "For its love of science, for its all-too-accurate teen misery, for its twists and turns, and finally, for the double twist at the end, I'm in love with this book! In addition to being a powerful story of how a teenage girl can save her own life, it is also a meditation on how to re-create your world if you find it lacking in any category that can possibly include you. Spooky bordering on terrifying, with a mind-blowing resolution." Goodreads "Maggie Warshauer, the 17-year-old main character in Valerie Nieman's intriguing new mystery , In the Lonely Backwater , may go down in literary history as one of the most memorable unreliable narrators since Rachel Watson in Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train." —G. Robert Frazier in Chapter 16 , Tennessee Humanities "In tight, yet poetic prose, wasting not a word or a sentence, Nieman skillfully takes readers into the life of a young woman tumultuously standing on womanhood's edge and creates a Southern mystery sure to intrigue." Nicole Yurcaba in The Portland Review "With gorgeous description and elegant prose, Nieman transforms a North Carolina village and marina into a haunting character in this fine literary novel. Readers who enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing will love this story and its likeable teen protagonist, Maggie Warshauer. Beautifully written and perfectly paced, In the Lonely Backwater is a great choice for book clubs." —Donna Meredith in Southern Literary Review "This novel is an intricate and intriguing work of art. Its intricacies are not mere twists of plot line; they are necessary and inevitable. The define, redefine, in a serious manner the term, mystery. —Fred Chappell, StorySouth For its love of science, for its all-too-accurate teen misery, for its twists and turns, and finally, for the double twist at the end, I'm in love with this book! In addition to being a powerful story of how a teenage girl can save her own life, it is also a meditation on how to re-create your world if you find it lacking in any category that can possibly include you. Spooky bordering on terrifying, with a mind-blowing resolution. -- Marjorie Hudson on Goodreads