The Girl in Duluth (ePub)

When 18-year-old June Bergeron's mother goes missing, June fears the disappearance could be connected to the unsolved murders of several women found in the woods near Duluth, Minnesota. As she investigates, she is pulled into an ugly and dangerous world of exploitation and abuse, and she discovers that everyone around her has been keeping secrets.

Set in a remote area of Minnesota on the Canadian border, The Girl in Duluth tells the story of not only one family's troubled history, but of a shrinking rural community reckoning with issues of gender, class, and race. Candid and elegant, June's voice also simmers with the uneasiness of a young woman who has suddenly become aware she can no longer be sure of anything.

Publishers Weekly calls The Girl in Duluth, which won a 2023 Midwest Book Award, an "affecting debut .... Brown easily creates engagement with [her main character] June, and poetic prose is a plus .... Fans of thoughtful crime fiction will hope for more from Brown."

From Mary Ann Grossman at the St. Paul Pioneer Press: "Brown's writing is gorgeous. She knows just when to move the story with dialogue and her descriptions of the lonely, cold stretches from Duluth north are vivid and familiar. Her style is so smooth you are lost in the story from the first pages .... Why this novel wasn't snapped up by a publisher is the big mystery here."