Before He Finds Her

From critically acclaimed author Michael Kardos, Before He Finds Her is a stirring, suspenseful novel about love and faith and fear, as a young woman searches for the father who committed a terrible crime over a decade ago.

Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore Town of Silver Bay knows the story: On a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a blowout block party, then brutally murdered his beautiful wife and three-year-old daughter. But everyone is wrong. The daughter got away. Under the name Melanie Denison, she has spent the last fifteen years in small-town West Virginia as part of the Witness Protection Program. She has never been allowed to travel, go to a school dance, or even have access to the Internet at home. Precautions must be taken at every turn, because Ramsey Miller was never caught and might still be on the hunt for his daughter. Despite strict house rules, Melanie has started a secretive relationship and is ten weeks pregnant. She doesn't want her child to grow up in hiding as she has had to. Defying her guardians and taking matters into her own hands, Melanie returns to Silver Bay in hopes of doing what the authorities have failed to do: find her father before he finds her.

Michael Kardos is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of the novel The Three-Day Affair and the story collectionOne Last Good Time. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he currently lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he codirects the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.