The Year of Fog - Michelle Richmond

There are some books in which the details are so vivid and so strong that they allow the reader to form mental images of every scene in the novel. This is definitely one of those books.

Abby Mason is a thirtysomething photographer living in San Francisco, soon to be married to handsome Jake, who has a six-year-old daughter. Abby is thrilled at the idea of becoming a stepmother to young Emma, but on one of their beach outings - a cold summer morning with a thick fog - Emma simply disappears. Abby and Jake's lives change drastically that day, as they set up a search party for Emma. As they distribute hundreds of thousands of posters and pictures with no leads, and Jake pleads with viewers on television shows, Jake and Abby lean on each other off and on. Jake eventually feels the need to move forward, and after giving Emma a memorial service, he tells Abby that she must choose - try to form a new life with him, or continue her search for Emma, alone. She chooses the latter and sets off for Costa Rica, on a small lead about a frog on a rare longboard that she is certain is connected to a surfer couple who was on the beach the day Emma disappeared.

On Abby's quest, we are told the story of her life, including the bizarre childhood with constantly bickering parents, and the bond she shared with her sister, with whom she is still very close. We also hear of Ramon, her first and only love prior to Jake, the one she let go and the one who was killed on his motorcycle not long after their breakup. What I loved most about Abby was her obsession with memory, and of her details about and her genuine love of photography.

Abby searches Costa Rica's beaches, traveling on buses for hours, even days at a time, looking for any clues that may lead to the surfboard bearing a golden frog in the center. She forms some friendships, tells several lies, and hits many a dead-end. As she's ready to admit defeat and pack up to return to California, she spots Emma on a beach. We finally learn that Emma's real mother, who left years earlier and was never really a "mother" in any sense of the word, was behind the scheme, and paid the 2 surfers $10,000 to kidnap her. Emma returns home with her father while Abby finishes the case in Costa Rica.

Happily Ever After? Not hardly, but Abby does try to move forward. She was so focused on finding Emma that once she does, she has no direction in life beyond it. She did forge a friendship with a surfer named Goofy who teaches her to ride a wave. And that's where we leave Abby - on her first ride.

I really enjoyed this book; I highly recommend it. Please visit Susan's blog to see her review!