I'm nominating
Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke (2014, 293 pp.)
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The critically acclaimed and bestselling author of The Raising returns with a haunting and shadowy thriller about the love between a mother and daughter.
Something had followed them from Russia.
On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens, the fragments of a nightmare—something so important that she must write it down—floating on the edge of her consciousness.
Something had followed them from Russia.
It was thirteen years ago that she and her husband, Eric, went to Siberia to adopt the sweet, dark-haired child they had wanted so desperately. How they laughed at the nurses of Pokrovka Orphanage #2 with their garlic and superstitions, and ignored their insistent warnings. After all, their fairy princess Tatiana—Baby Tatty—was perfect.
As the snow falls, enveloping the world in its white silence, Holly senses that something is not right, and has never been right in the years since they brought their daughter home. Now Tatty is a dangerously beautiful, petulant, and often erratic teenager, and Holly feels there is something evil lurking within their house.
She and Tatiana are alone. Eric is stuck on the roads, and none of the other guests for Christmas dinner will be able to make it through the snow. With each passing hour, the blizzard rages and Tatiana's mood darkens, her behavior becoming increasingly disturbing . . . until, in every mother's worst nightmare, Holly finds she no longer recognizes her daughter.
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* Holly Judge wakes up on Christmas morning knowing “Something had followed them home from Russia.” Trapped at home with her teenage daughter during a blizzard, Holly’s thoughts drift back to the trips she and her husband took to Siberia’s Pokrovka Orphanage #2 to adopt baby Tatiana. Versions of those visits change as the day progresses. Holly’s slow revelations about what drove her to adopt and her own family history cause the reader to become even more suspicious of Holly’s increasingly confused descriptions of the day’s events. Whatever happened in Russia, something, or someone, in that house is not right. The slow, cold menace in the book is palpable. As a reader, you know that something horrible is going to be revealed—something awful and inevitable. And, when you finally force yourself to turn that last page, it will not be a scream that gets caught in your throat, but a gut-punching, heart-wrenching sob. A book that will haunt you for days and long, long nights after reading. --Karen Keefe
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Amazon U.S., $10.74
Amazon Canada, CA $9.99
Amazon UK, £4.74
Amazon Australia, AU $7.47
Kobo U.S., $10.74
Kobo Canada, $9.99
Kobo UK, £4.79
Kobo Australia, AU $8.13
Available through Overdrive (e-book and audiobook), Hoopla (e-book and audiobook), RB Digital (audiobook), Axis360 (e-book), Freading (e-book), Scribd (e-book and audiobook).