In Search of the Rose Notes: A Novel

( 32 )

Overview

Eleven-year-olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends. When their teenage babysitter, Rose, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the girls decided to “investigate.” But their search—aided by paranormal theories and techniques gleaned from old Time-Life books—went nowhere.

Years later, Nora, now in her late twenties, is drawn back to her old neighborhood—and to her estranged friend—when Rose’s remains are finally discovered. Upset over their earlier failure to solve the ...

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More About This Book

Overview

Eleven-year-olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends. When their teenage babysitter, Rose, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the girls decided to “investigate.” But their search—aided by paranormal theories and techniques gleaned from old Time-Life books—went nowhere.

Years later, Nora, now in her late twenties, is drawn back to her old neighborhood—and to her estranged friend—when Rose’s remains are finally discovered. Upset over their earlier failure to solve the possible murder, Charlotte is adamant that they join forces and try again. But Nora was the last known person to see Rose alive, and she’s not ready to revisit her troubled adolescence and the events surrounding the disappearance—or face the disturbing secrets that are already beginning to reemerge.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Arsenault follows her well-received debut, The Broken Teaglass, with a compelling psychological mystery, told from the alternating point of view of the 20-something narrator and her confused preteen self. In 1990, 11-year-old Nora and her best friend, 11-year-old Charlotte, spend many hours with their beloved babysitter, 16-year-old Rose Banks, exploring their dreams, watching scary movies, and poring through Time-Life books about the paranormal. Then Rose suddenly disappears. The girls' obsessive efforts to divine what happened eventually lead to the end of their close relationship. Sixteen years later, Rose's body is found, the case reopened. At Charlotte's insistence, Nora, the last person to see Rose alive, returns home to Waverly, Conn., where it strikes her that her old friends have never really moved on; all harbor both questions and secrets about Rose. Instead of dwelling on fear and pain, Arsenault guides the reader through grief, compassion, and understanding in this emotionally complex and deeply satisfying read. (Aug.)
Wall Street Journal
Emily Arsenault’s absorbing second book, "In Search of the Rose Notes," is at least as much a novel as a detective story.... Ms. Arsenault here reveals strange truths beneath everyday surfaces and shows that truth sometimes isn’t all that strange.
Library Journal
Arsenault writes unusual mysteries that don't quite fit the conventions of the genre. Her first, The Broken Teaglass, revolves around lexicographers following a trail of clues with wit and wordplay. Here she focuses on a much darker story—the disappearance of a teenage girl. When best friends Nora and Charlotte are 11, Charlotte's beloved babysitter, Rose Banks, vanishes. Sixteen years later, when her body is discovered, Nora and Charlotte cautiously rekindle their friendship and try once again to solve the mystery. Back then they used the Time-Life series "Mysteries of the Unknown" to shape their investigation; now they bring an adult perspective, except Nora is overwhelmed by revisiting her rocky adolescence. Confronting her past proves difficult and filled with more than one mystery as she returns to her hometown for the first time since high school. VERDICT While Arsenault excels at depicting the confusion and anxiety of childhood, the mystery itself lacks suspense. A solid read in which the uncertainty of relationships is more important than finding out what happened to Rose.—Devon Thomas, DevIndexing, Chelsea, MI
Kirkus Reviews

Former best friends reunite to solve the mystery of their babysitter.

It's been nine years since Charlotte and Nora's babysitter Rose disappeared. During that time, Nora has married and become a potter kept busy at craft fairs, while Charlotte, after floundering a bit, has become a schoolteacher. Their friendship has withered, and the days when they scanned arcane texts in hope of divining what happened to Rose are only distant childhood memories when Charlotte calls and announces that Rose's body, folded into a wicker trunk, has surfaced. So Nora returns to Waverly, Conn., to pick up the friendship and the mystery of Rose, a task that wends past anonymous poems in The Looking Glass, the Waverly Literary magazine; a crippling accident that Rose witnessed; and a vow of silence taken by four joyriders out for a little fun. The backward journey must also investigate a suicide attempt, inexplicable mood swings and childhood rivalries, jealousies and thoughtless cruelties before reaching its sad conclusion.

Arsenault (The Broken Teaglass, 2009) spins a tale that's sensitive, chilling and compellingly told in chapters alternating the troubled present with the even more turbulent past.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780062012326
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 7/26/2011
  • Pages: 384
  • Sales rank: 1,310,876
  • Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.86 (d)

Meet the Author

Emily Arsenault is the critically acclaimed author of The Broken Teaglass, a New York Times Notable Mystery, and In Search of the Rose Notes. She lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughter.

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Read an Excerpt

In Search of the Rose Notes

A Novel
By Emily Arsenault

William Morrow Paperbacks

Copyright © 2011 Emily Arsenault
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780062012326

Chapter One

Fitting that Charlotte would call while I was doing nothing.
When we were kids, she was always saving me from nothing.
What are you doing? Nothing. And compared to Charlotte’s
house, with its big brother, its basketball hoop, its VCR, its
trampoline, and its pantry full of Oreos, my place really was
nothing. You wanna come over? Nothing but an apartment with
neatly dusted hardwood floors, a grainy television without a
cable box, a crotchety old landlady downstairs, and a single
mother who prided herself on getting five meals out of a single
chicken. Did I want to come over? Back then the answer was
always yes.
This time when Charlotte called, I was sitting at my wheel
in the garage, staring at a sketch I’d done a week earlier—of
a squat teapot with a wide, round handle. I’d nearly sat down
twice to make it, and twice I’d found myself distracted by
something more pressing—a bill I’d forgotten to pay, the lawn
I’d meant to mow.
Now I gazed at the freshly wedged lump of clay in my hands.
I hadn’t much else to do but throw it down and get started.
My grades were submitted, the laundry was done, and this had
been my plan all along. Same as last year. Spend the summer
throwing like crazy so I’d have lots to sell through Christmas,
even if my teaching didn’t allow me much time at the wheel
in the fall. It had worked beautifully last year. But this year I
just wasn’t getting into it the way I had. Neil and I no longer
really needed my meager profits from the craft fairs and farmer’s
markets—and maybe I didn’t need any more compliments
from hemp-skirted ladies and their gentle, bearded husbands.
Not to mention that I was a little tired of my quaint teapots and
teacups. While I had nothing against quaintness, I wasn’t sure I
wished to generate it anymore.
I considered ignoring the phone when it rang. Clearly I was
having the sort of existential moment a career in ceramics is
supposed to protect you from. If I focused, if I made myself
stay in the garage, I could work through it. If I simply ignored
everything else and got the wheel spinning, I’d probably just
forget about it.
After the third ring, I jumped up and ran for the door to the
house.
“Hello?”
“Hello? Nora?” I felt oddly relieved by the sound of her voice
even before I knew who it was. “It’s Charlotte Hemsworth.”
“Charlotte?” I repeated. “HEY!”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. How are you?
Charlotte hesitated. “Not so bad. And you? I heard you and
your husband bought a house.”
“Umm, yeah.”
I looked around the living room skeptically. It had been five
months since we’d painted these crisp yellow walls. Neil had
assured me that we’d feel better about our color choice once we
filled the living room with furniture and hung some pictures on
the wall to break it up. But we’d done all that and I still wasn’t
convinced.
Charlotte was silent on the other end.
“How’d you hear about the house?” I asked.
“I called your mom, and she told me. That’s how I got your
number. She’s easier to find than you are. Your old number
didn’t work.”
“My e-mail’s still the same, though.”
“I didn’t want to e-mail you, Nora. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, that’s nice. I’m glad you—”
“Nora,” she interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“They found her.”
“Found . . . who?”
“Rose.”
I had a flash of Rose walking into the Waverly police station,
her dark blond hair still brushing her shoulders, her
wide-necked purple sweatshirt still hanging off one shoulder,
exposing her exotically black bra strap. Smelling of the Love’s
drugstore perfume that was supposed to cover up the smell of
her cigarettes. That stone-washed jean jacket tied around her
waist. Her face about fifteen years older. Or—had it been more
than fifteen years?
“Oh, my God,” I whispered, my heart now racing. “Is she—”
“They found her body, I mean. Bones.”
I leaned against the wall, pushing the phone so hard against
my ear that it hurt.
“Nora?” Charlotte said.
I tried to picture what Charlotte might look like at this very
moment. Sitting at her parents’ old kitchen table, surrounded
by that ugly mauve wallpaper with the ribboned clusters of
white flowers. Saying my name so gently into the phone, as
if coaxing me there for another sleepover, promising no scary
movies this time. A promise she never seemed to keep.
“I’m here,” I said. Sort of. “How do they know it’s her?”
“Something about a bracelet, clothing fibers. . . . Listen,
I’m e-mailing you an article. I just didn’t want to surprise you
with it.”
Listening to Charlotte, I could almost smell her mother’s
Pall Malls. That kitchen was where I was supposed to be when
we found Rose—not in this perky little bungalow where Neil
and I had accidentally painted every room one shade too bright.
I heard Charlotte take a breath.
“Where, Charlotte?”
“I’m at home,” Charlotte said vaguely.
“No. Where did they find her?”
“Near the pond. Adams Pond.”
“But . . . didn’t they comb that area when we were kids? A
few times, even?”
“I’m not sure. But yeah. I thought so.”
“Was she buried really deep? I mean, how did they know to
dig there?”
“Nobody knew anything. Some kids just . . . found her. There
was something sticking out of the ground, I guess, and . . . well,
I’m not sure. My friend Porter’s done the first couple of stories
for the paper, but the police aren’t giving out that many details.”
“Your friend Porter?”
“From when I worked at the Voice,” Charlotte said with a
sigh.
“Oh,” I said.
“Of course there are all sorts of rumors. I’m not sure how
accurate it is, but one scuttlebutt is that the body was moved
there. Recently.”
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor. “But that’s
. . . crazy. That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
Now that I was seated, I took a deep breath and tried to get
my head around it: Yes, this was real. I was talking to Charlotte
again. About Rose. But then, what else did we have to talk about
except Rose? We’d politely pretended otherwise for years, but
Rose was really the only thing we could still have in common.
“Are you all right, Nora?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Are you near a computer?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m sending you the article just now.”
“You want me to read it right now?”
“Well . . . if you want.”
Charlotte’s sideways insistence was familiar and therefore
comforting.
“Give me a few minutes,” I said. “I’ll call you back.”
I opened my laptop and found her e-mail sitting there, dated
just one minute before now. The link was to an article in the
Voice. I had no idea my old hometown paper had gone high tech.

ADAMS POND BODY LIKELY
MISSING YOUNG WOMAN
WAVERLY—The bones found last week near Adams
Pond are likely those of Waverly resident Rose Banks,
who has been missing since 1990, according to police.
“It’s still quite early in the investigation, but we now
believe that this could be Rose Banks. We’ve already
spoken to the family, and if it is her, we hope that this
will give them some closure in what has been a painful
case,” Waverly police chief Carl Fisher said during a
press conference yesterday.
The skeletal remains, along with Banks’s dental
records, have been sent to a forensics lab in Hartford
for further testing, which could take several weeks.
Tolland County coroner Donald Campbell, in a preliminary
investigation, identified the skeletal remains as
belonging to a female between the ages of fifteen and
twenty, which have been decomposing for at least ten
years, Chief Fisher said.
The body was found Thursday near Adams Pond
by two boys who were fishing there. Local and state
police closed off the entire pond area to search for
additional clues.
This discovery reopens Banks’s sixteen-year-old
case, the only missing-person case ever reported in
town history. Banks, age sixteen, was last seen on the
evening of November 15, 1990, walking home from a
baby-sitting job in her Fox Hill neighborhood. Police
and town residents searched for weeks but found no
clues suggesting her whereabouts.
“With the help of Detective Tracy Vaughan of the
state police cold-case unit, we’re going over every
detail of the case to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
We’ll likely re-interview many of Miss Banks’s friends
and associates, and we would be grateful to speak to
anyone else who might know something about this
case,” Chief Fisher said.
So it was real. They’d found Rose. After all these years. As
I read the article again, I had a feeling that my wheel wouldn’t
be spinning for another week at least. I knew I needed to see
Charlotte, and she needed to see me.
Psychic Powers:
August 1990
It was Charlotte’s idea to make the Zener cards. Like all her
projects that summer, the idea came out of the Time-Life
books. We pronounced them ZEE-ner cards. Rose managed to
turn the making of the cards into a two-afternoon affair—one
for walking a mile and a half into town to Rite Aid for a pack
of three-by-five cards, the other for carefully crayoning thick
black circles, squares, crosses, stars, and (the most fun, but also
the most difficult) three-lined psychedelic squiggles. Rose
rejected our early attempts, insisting that the waves needed to be
parallel and that sloppiness might confuse the mind and skew
our results.
On the third day of the project, Rose finally shuffled the
cards and laid them out for us. She’d been designated for this
task since she was, for all intents and purposes, the grown-up.
Charlotte and I would take turns guessing the symbols on the
overturned cards and recording each other’s results. On the
first try, I got ten out of twenty-five. Charlotte got four. On my
second round, I noticed Rose’s face changing before some of
my guesses. Her mouth opened round before a circle; her head
bobbled lazily before the wavy lines. Once she was certain I’d
noticed it, the gestures became subtler—a slight movement of
the mouth for a circle, a twitch of the chin for the squiggles.
For stars, squares, and crosses, she offered no help, keeping her
face motionless and her eyes slanted toward the ceiling in an
exaggerated expression of disinterest.
“Wow.” Rose raised her eyebrows at Charlotte when my
second and third rounds turned out an impressive thirteen and
eleven respectively.
Through Rose’s facial codes, I noticed a helpful pattern—
more often than not, she put squiggly lines on the edges and
circles somewhere in the center of the five-card rows. Her hints
weren’t always discernible, and sometimes Charlotte’s intense
gaze made it impossible to sneak a look at her. But overall the
help made my results significantly higher than Charlotte’s. As
my psychic superiority became apparent, Charlotte was clearly
perplexed. Instead of scrutinizing us, however, she simply
focused harder on her own guesses. Frowning and uncharacteristically
silent, she was determined to reverse the results. She had
apparently been certain that she’d be the psychic one. We knew
this without ever hearing her say it. Whenever a situation
allowed for someone to be the winner, or to be special, Charlotte
inevitably—and usually effortlessly—fell into the role.
Rose and I never discussed our cheating or adjusted the
methods—even when we could have, when Charlotte was in
the bathroom or fetching more graham crackers out of the
pantry. I never understood why we were doing it. It wasn’t to
laugh at Charlotte or to trick her. I wouldn’t even say Rose liked
me better than she liked Charlotte. She didn’t have enough
interest in either of us to form a preference.
“Your psi seems stronger for round and wavy lines,” Charlotte
observed after about three afternoons of repeated testing.
I bit my lip and looked at Rose for help.
“Probably she’s using her right brain more,” Rose said quickly.
“What does that mean?” Charlotte asked.
“I learned about it in school,” Rose explained. “The left brain
is more like the science and math part. The right brain is, like,
the soft stuff. Art and poetry and stuff. I’m right-brained, I
think. My sister’s left-brained. Nora’s probably right-brained.”
“What do you think I am?” Charlotte wanted to know.
“I’m not sure. What do you like better, math or language arts?”
“I like both.”
“Well. Then you’re neither-brained.”
“Or both-brained,” Charlotte suggested.
Rose gathered up the cards, looking bored. “Another round?”
she asked, shuffling.
“This time with Pepsi,” Charlotte suggested, and then she
explained to us her latest finding in the black books. Experiments
performed by J. B. Rhine in the 1930s indicated that people’s
ESP and psychokinetic abilities improved after they’d drunk
caffeinated sodas. After hearing this explanation, Rose let us
raid Charlotte’s dad’s impressive Pepsi supply in the pantry.
“If anyone asks, I drank most of it and you guys each just had
a glass,” Rose called from the living room as Charlotte and I
chugged in the kitchen.
I thought I sensed in that statement Rose’s desire to have a
little Pepsi herself. As Charlotte refilled my glass, I stepped
tentatively into the living room to ask her if she wanted any. When
I saw her slip a few cigarettes out of Charlotte’s mom’s coffee
table pack, I crept back into the kitchen for my second glass.
The Pepsi results were inconclusive. Charlotte’s performance
improved slightly but remained just under chance. Mine stayed
the same.
“Nora’s looks like a pretty pure power,” Rose said. “Kind of a
steady, unshakable vision.”
Charlotte sucked on a lock of her reddish hair. She looked
wounded, but just for a moment. When her eyes met mine,
she pulled the hair out of her mouth and gave me an admiring
smile.
“Yes,” she said, tucking the lock behind her ear. “It looks
like it.”

(Continues...)


Excerpted from In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault Copyright © 2011 by Emily Arsenault. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow Paperbacks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 32 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(9)

4 Star

(11)

3 Star

(5)

2 Star

(3)

1 Star

(4)

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 32 Customer Reviews

  • Posted July 31, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Bone-chilling

    This story is wrapped around those fantastic Time Life books that used to be published, with those unforgettable black and silver covers; books that spoke about everything from myths to monsters that lined the end of the aisles in all the hometown grocery stores. Charlotte and Nora are babysat by a beautiful girl named Rose. Rose is a bit quiet, some would call her "odd," but the girls love her. In fact, each and every day after school they do a project of some kind, and talk about the incredibly strange worlds that Charlotte's Time Life books cover. Nora is the more grounded one of the two best friends, whereas, Charlotte is the outspoken one who takes notes and actually believes in most all of what Time has discovered. One day, out of the blue, Rose and Nora leave Charlotte's house and Rose walks Nora home. Then, as always, Rose disappears over the hill to get back to her own place. In the morning, however, Rose doesn't reappear. In fact, she never made it home the night before. The crime goes unsolved in the community, with the "small-town" people chalking it up to a runaway. As far as they are concerned, Rose decided to simply move on. Years later, Nora and Charlotte are living far apart. Nora went on to get married to a wonderful man and works as a pottery-maker, creating sculptures to sell at various arts and crafts fairs, as well as teaching her skill to others. Charlotte stayed back in the old hometown and became a teacher; the two best friends keeping in touch with hardly more than a yearly Christmas card. Until the day that the body of Rose is found, and Charlotte calls up Nora to tell her to come back for a visit. The police, who have found the bones nicely placed into a tote and sitting beside the river's edge, want to question everyone from way back when about what happened before Rose's disappearance, in an attempt to try and solve the crime. Nora feels strange coming back home. The memories of Rose, and sitting around her now chain-smoking best friend who seems to have her own secrets, makes Nora very nervous. But as the two now-grown women begin to unearth the past, and a box that holds letters, notes, and the black and silver books, the mystery of what actually happened to Rose begins to appear before their very eyes. This author has done a magnificent job of incorporating the resurrection of a friendship with a slightly "bone-chilling" tale of a young girl who was into far more than her hometown ever thought. Quill Says: This is what one would call a beautifully written mystery that combines a 'normal' present with a haunting past. Enjoy!

    8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted June 17, 2012

    I Also Recommend:

    Ancient Legends Books 1-3 Discounted Offer

    What a great read! really enjoyed it. It was very easy for me to

    What a great read! really enjoyed it. It was very easy for me to connect to the characters

    6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted September 13, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Beautiful Mystery

    Charlotte and Nora have not seen each other in many years. They grew up together, and were best friends as girls. After their babysitter disappeared when they were in grade school, they grew apart. Nora eventually left the area, while Charlotte remained behind. Rose's disappearance remained unsolved.

    Now, fifteen years later, bones have been found in a place previously searched. Nora is drawn back home, as she and Charlotte revisit the past in hopes of solving the mystery of Rose's disappearance. The high school literary magazine may offer clues, as not only did Rose and later Charlotte work on it, but now Charlotte teaches at the high school.

    The characters are interesting, and tightly interwoven in this suspenseful novel. Their histories are long and complicated. In Search of the Rose Notes offers many twists and turns and surprises. It is a perfect summer read.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted July 29, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    What mysteries can be unlocked from our past?

    Eleven-year olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends. When their teenage babysitter, Rose, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the girls decided to "investigate." But their search - aided by paranormal theories and techniques gleaned from old Time-Life books - went nowhere.

    Years later, Nora, now in her late twenties, is drawn back to her old neighborhood - and to her estranged friend - when Rose's remains are finally discovered. Upset over their earlier failure to solve the possible murder, Charlotte is adamant that they join forces and try again. But Nora was the last known person to see Rose alive, and she's not ready to revisit her troubled adolescence and the events surrounding the disappearance - or face the disturbing secrets that are already beginning to reemerge.

    In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault is a compelling novel about the secrets people keep when they don't know which way to turn. Sometimes dead bed confessions can be good for the soul, and other times it will unlock a unsolved mystery for good. This novel also shares what happens to people who know what happened but can't find a way to let the truth out.

    When Charlotte and Nora gain the childlike curiosity to wonder why things happen that are unexplained through a collection of Time-Life books that Charlotte's brother has had, they begin to use the secrets in them to unlock the mystery of what happened one fateful night when she walked home and never made it.

    Sixteen years later, Rose's body is discovered in the pond just as Nora makes a visit to Charlotte after hearing the news. Convinced the secret lies in notes about their dreams when they were children, the women once more turn to their books to see if a pattern exists that will point to what really happened to Rose.

    I received this book compliments of TLC Book Tours for my honest review and could relate to this book in so many ways. Being a child myself, I remember the curiosity I had in thinking about the possibilities of powers of the mind, things that go bump in the night, and wondering if some of those things are real or just a way to sell books. This one is like a mystery you are trying to solve along with Charlotte and Nora many years later as the author takes you back to their childhood before Rose went missing to see if somehow something was overlooked in what they remembered about that time. This book is great for mystery, suspense lovers and rates a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

    2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 11, 2011

    Filled with suspense, complex relationships, and Time-Life lore...an immensely readable ride.

    Remember those Time Life books about alien abductions, werewolves, astral projection and all things occult? Remember how it was hinted that they held the answers to all the questions of the more inquisitive minds?


    I don't know about you, but I still have a special place in my heart for those types of books...hell, even space on my bookshelf. Usually you were reading these books around adolescence, when you realized there was so much more to life than what was known, than our own insignificant worries about boys noticing us, or wearing the right kind of clothes, or getting good grades, or maintaining our "reputation."


    Nora and Charlotte are two of these 11 year old girls, taking on the mysteries of the universe. When their teen-aged babysitter goes missing, they use the techniques of their prized Time Life books in order to find out what's happened to her. Only, despite all their research--the runes, the EVP recordings, and the dream analysis--they get nowhere.


    Now in her late twenties, Nora revisits her old hometown and her old friend, Charlotte. New information has emerged and left the entire community shaken; all the old questions and suspicions are rehashed, and no one is safe from scrutiny. Rose's bones have been found in the woods and all signs point to her body being relocated recently. Charlotte and Norah join together after a long estrangement to find out who is responsible for Rose's death. As they discuss that fateful fall, Nora remembers a lot more than she bargained for, and suspects that Charlotte knows more than she is letting on. But is Norah ready to learn the truth about Rose's death, the truth about the community she left behind, the truth about the girl she was and tried so hard to forget?


    Did they ever really know Rose? As they pore over her old notes and dream entries (pieces they badgered her into writing for their Time-Life projects), they begin to realize that their perceptions of Rose have changed with experience and hard-earned wisdom.


    This isn't just a book about a missing girl and a sleepy town: it's about the people we try to escape, the fugitives we become from our pasts, and how reinventing ourselves can lead to emotional stagnation and arrested development. It's about the connections we run away from, the people who knows us more than we know ourselves, and the truths we just aren't ready to see.


    It's about coming home again, when you've been away for so long.



    Excerpts:


    "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Almost all the girls I teach have some crazy impulse or other. Even if it takes a very different form. Sluttiness. Shoplifting. Cheerleading. That age for girls, it's like." Charlotte twisted her cigarette in her ashtray and glanced down at one of the books on the coffee table. "It's like the Bermuda Triangle. Smooth sailing, then something goes haywire. Nobody understands exactly what happens. And it's totally random, who makes it out the same, who gets lost, who comes back okay."

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 7, 2012

    Not quite there

    The novelnswitches from the past to present quite a bit. Whil this technique could be.used to really show character motives and development, i found it dstracting here, as there was a lot that was truly superfluous. There were some great ideas here as themes. But i think it could have been edited better, the characters made a little more real, and the themes explored more. But still a.good book.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted October 20, 2011

    So-so

    I was disappointed with this novel. It had such potential but squandered it. I could not connect with the characters at all.

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted September 1, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Full of emotion, mystery, and unexpected twists

    In Search of the Rose Notes is a engrossing read. The uneven childhood friendship between Nora and Charlotte provides drama and moves the story forward as they each try in their own way to solve the mystery of their babysitter's disappearance. Nora is a much more sympathetic character than her privileged friend. As Nora reaches out to and meets with people that she knew back then, when she was "the last person to see Rose alive" we can picture her high school experience - not fun - and clues to Rose's mysterious disappearance.

    Full of emotion, mystery, and unexpected twists, In Search of the Rose Notes is a complicated an unexpected read.

    ISBN-10: 0062012320 - Paperback $14.99
    Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (July 26, 2011).
    Review copy provided by the publisher.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 12, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    This is a terrific psychological drama

    In 1990 in Waverly, Connecticut, tweeners Nora and Charlotte are concerned that their sixteen year old babysitter Rose vanished without a trace. Using Charlotte's older brother smelly Paul's treasure of Time-Life books with the secrets of the universe as their paranormal reference library; the BFFs investigate but find nothing. The inquiry strains their friendship.

    In 2006, Rose's remains are found in the nearby woods; having been recently moved. Charlotte calls Nora who feels like it is old times as her former BFF always seemed to know when she has was doing nothing. The former asks the latter to come home so they can resume their failed investigation; this time looking for Rose's killer. Nora reluctantly agrees as she is the last known person to have seen Rose alive and is not sure she wants the past opened up.

    Rotating viewpoint between the two years, this is a terrific psychological drama that will remind readers of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones though in this case Rose does not speak from beyond. The story line focuses on the two BFFs who learn more about each other than they do about Rose. Leisurely paced, readers will enjoy this deep character study as the truth does not always free you as it sometimes makes you flee from what you learn about yourself in abject terror.

    Harriet Klausner

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 28, 2013

    Yuui

    Yuck i would not recomend it

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 26, 2013

    ?......

    A VERRY GOOD READ. SM

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 20, 2012

    Dragged out plot

    Story dragged out way too long. I kept waiting for it to get better. I was disappointed in it.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 7, 2012

    Beach read

    Mystery with charm. Another author to add to your wishlists

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  • Posted July 29, 2012

    Emily Arsenault is a very talented writer and I REALLY enjoyed t

    Emily Arsenault is a very talented writer and I REALLY enjoyed the development of the characters. She went into so much depth with them and I could find myself relating to the main character in many ways. I was so into this book and couldn't wait to find out what happened to Rose. I won't say anymore....but the ending was not really what I expected and kind of left me scratching my head.

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  • Posted July 25, 2012

    Really quite good...

    Both my daughter and myself thouroughly enjoyed this book..The tie in with the Time Life books on the occult and supernatural was cool and we like that it was set in New England...We admit we both thought a different person was responsible for Rose"s disapperance then the person who was but it didn"t lessen our enjoyment...

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  • Posted July 17, 2012

    Ok

    This is a rather unusually written book. Definatly not something for rainy days due to the rather total sad essence of the story.

    This book is one that if you have nothing else to read it would work.

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  • Posted July 17, 2012

    Couldn't Put It Down!

    This is a good, attention grabbing mystery plot with a great educational twist, taking us into the world of lexicography. I had never given any thought to how dictionaries are written until reading this thriller.
    I recommend it!

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 10, 2012

    Fantastic Read!

    I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants something that is just too good to put down.

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  • Posted June 30, 2012

    Was a really good book was very easy to follow story line! It do

    Was a really good book was very easy to follow story line! It does go back in forth in time a lot but it makes a very good read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 28, 2012

    Good read

    I really enjoyed this book, more than many of the books I have read recently. Would definitely recommend it!

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