Tethered - Amy MacKinnon

Clara Marsh is an undertaker. She spends her solitary life among the dead, preparing their last baths, beautifying their bodies, and bidding them farewell with a bouquet from her own garden. But Clara's carefully structured life shifts when she discovers a neglected little girl, Trecie, playing in the funeral parlour, desperate for a friend.

It changes even more when Detective Mike Sullivan starts questioning her again about a body she prepared three years ago, an unidentified girl found murdered in a nearby strip of woods. Unclaimed by family, the community christened her Precious Doe. When Clara and Mike learn Trecie may be involved with the same people who killed Precious Doe, Clara must choose between her solitary but steadfast existence and the perils of binding one's life to another.

Clara's search for the girl pulls her into a spiralling series of events that threaten to endanger the few people Clara has grown to love - and finally brings her own tragic and long-buried past to the surface.

Darkly atmospheric and tautly written, TETHERED is a haunting and ultimately heart-breaking novel that explores the themes of love, loss, faith and redemption.