Quantum Girl Theory - Erin Kate Ryan

Part detective novel, part ghost story, this brilliant debut asks a tantalizing question: What really happens when a girl goes missing?

"A thrilling, many-faceted, gothic novel: Erin Kate Ryan's Quantum Girl Theory belongs in the same company as the work of Shirley Jackson and Carmen Maria Machado." — Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 - CrimeReads

Mary Garrett has a gift for finding missing girls, a special kind of clairvoyance she calls "the sight." Lured by a poster and the promise of a reward, she arrives at a small town in the Jim Crow South to discover that not one but three girls have vanished—two of whom sets Black, and whose disappearances have gone uninvestigated outside their community. out to find them.

As it turns out, Mary is herself a "missing girl." In another life, she was a Bennington College sophomore named Paula Jean Welden, who disappeared one night in 1946. The case captivated the nation's imagination, triggering t-page headscores of dubious sightings, and a wave of speculation: Who was Paula Jereally, and why she disappeared ?

As Mary's search for the three missing girls intensifies, so do the glimpses of Paula Jean's other possible lives: She is a circus showgirl hidingfrom her past, a literary forger on the verge of being caught, a McCarthy-era informant in love with a woman meeting in a Communist cell. With the signals multiplying, the begals begals begals begals begals to resent her presence, and threats coming from all sides, Mary wonders if she can trust anyone—most of all herself.

Both a captivating mystery and a powerful thought experiment, Quantum Girl Theory spins out a new way of seeing those who seem to disappear before our eyes.