Nothing bad can happen in your hometown…right?

 By Sarah P. Blanchard

My second novel, Grabtown, was published October 15, 2025. It’s a multi-generational small-town thriller, structured as a book-within-a-book that follows an old cold-case murder set within a contemporary timeline.

 The story opens in the present with a vignette portraying three young girls confined in a cargo container, traveling to an unknown destination. The focus then shifts to a seemingly unrelated story, following two adult twins, Cassie and Ana, after the death of their mother.

 As Cassie and Ana begin clearing their mother’s house after her death, they find an unpublished novel from 1985, written by their mom’s best friend, that tells of sexual trauma, abuse, arson, and a 40-year-old unsolved murder—and their mother is a key character in the story.

 The twins aren’t sure whether to burn it or read it. Is it fiction, or confession?

 They must navigate their own troubled relationship as they try to figure out why their mother left this story for them—and also why Cassie’s husband is now desperate to keep them from digging further into the past.  

 The story-within-a-story weaves together two timelines and tackles difficult topics with a “tactful approach [that] exposes a sad reality with understanding and compassion.” (Reviewer Lorraine Cobcroft, Reedsy).

 Grabtown has an interesting background. I first wrote the 1985 part of the story about 35 years ago, and came close to having it traditionally published back then as a stand-alone mystery. That didn’t happen, the manuscript went into a box, and I mostly forgot about it. Two years ago, I found it, read it, concluded it was rubbish, and nearly tossed it. Then I reconsidered and gave it a second chance because, although it was badly out of date and not very well-written, the core of the story about abuse and betrayal is, sadly, still very relevant today.

 So, about 25 percent of that old novel became the basis for the 1985 timeline in Grabtown.

 Full disclosure: There is no abandoned village in Connecticut called Grabtown.  I borrowed the name and origin story from the place where the actor Ava Gardner grew up, a poverty-stricken town close to where I lived for ten years in North Carolina. I liked the double meaning of the word, with its sinister overtones.

 When readers ask, “Do you follow the classic advice to ‘write what you know’?” I usually say, “sort of.” Because no, I’ve never killed anyone, or committed arson, or had to escape a dangerous spouse. (Though I do know people who have done those things.) Both of the storylines, old and new, are fiction, but with elements of fact woven in. What I’m always aiming for is truth, carried by a fictional plot that will bring the truth home in a wrapped-up way that real life usually doesn’t do. 

In my novel, Grabtown is an abandoned village just outside a fictional, colonial-era mill town I’ve called Winslow, which looks remarkably like the very real town of Putnam, Connecticut, where I live. I’ve included several Easter eggs—personal-history references and place names—especially in the old timeline. Yes, I worked in the 1970s as a news reporter at the local radio station, and I was a volunteer firefighter for a couple of years. I once owned a four-ten shotgun like the one in the story, and I’m very familiar with the farming community here. The state police barracks in Danielson is real. There’s a footbridge over the river—though not right over the falls—and a very nice café across the street from the old theater.

 In my writing, I’m drawn to flawed, compassionate characters who believe they must battle their demons alone, and desperately conflicted antagonists who feel they have nothing to lose. Then I create a challenging situation, require my characters to make difficult choices based on imperfect information, and see what happens. Just like life, right? Except life doesn’t always bring a satisfying conclusion. And I’ve found that readers want their stories to first keep them on their toes, and then bring some form of justice at the end. And that’s what all good mysteries and thrillers should deliver, right?  Justice.

 A BookLife reviewer commented on the importance of creating this tension that leads to a final sense of justice. “The novel’s greatest strength lies in Blanchard’s deft control of mood and tone. Gothic motifs and haunting imagery lend the book an atmosphere of constant unease, right up to the final page. Yet it never overshadows the emotional force of Cassie’s discoveries, nor the sharper social commentary on the silences small towns demand. In the end, Grabtown is a story about refusing the inheritance of secrets and cycles of harm—and mustering the courage it takes to rise above them.”

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