“What do you mean, she’s missing?”
- Elise
Julie was a free spirit in college who presided at the center of her group of buds, Elise, Mae and Molly, as they shared the highs and lows and silliness of the college experience.
Still friends after graduation, loving each other for what they were even as they judge each other for what they’ve become, they mostly avoid substantive discussions, trying to maintain the lightness of their early friendship as their infrequent reunions become breaks from post-college grown-up full-time job stress. When Julie suddenly marries, Elise, Mae and Molly are shocked, given her love-‘em and leave-‘em history, but they attend, cheer her on and find they approve of the lucky groom. They are shocked again when the girl-about-town and her new husband purchase a B&B.
Their third shock comes when, not very long after buying the B&B, Julie disappears while hiking.
Mae and Molly find it hard to absorb Julie’s disappearance, hard to believe she must be dead. But Elise, Julie’s college roommate and always the closest to her, never embraces Julie’s death; she knows – knows – Julie is still out there, somewhere.
Elise, our narrator, details the reunion of the four at a remote Catskills inn, not yet fully open to the public, after Julie reappears two years to the day after disappearing. Julie’s friends hope to reconnect, hope to understand how she could disappear for so long with no memory of what happened, and more importantly, learn what is happening to her now and how to help.
Elise is unhappy with her life, which seems stagnant. Her narrative contains self-doubt and self-criticism, but what could have been irritating is leavened by her love for her friends, even when they annoy her, and occasionally punctuated with a wry humor and perspective on herself and the others. Through Elise, Harrison captures the shock and sense of dislocation that comes when the young believe they’ve lost a friend their own age, the sense that someone so young should somehow have been proof against dying, and the relief of finding they have not.
As the reunion progresses, the uncanny creeps in slowly. Julie seems not herself, somewhat withdrawn, even ill, and with the other three not wanting to push too hard, their interactions become awkward and stressful. That tension is reflected in the inn with a string of odd incidents, an atmosphere of impending trouble, some unexplained disappearances. While slowly putting the dominos in place, Harrison offers solid background on each woman and a sense of how their relationships have worked in the past, strengths and weaknesses, while we watch the weaknesses work against them now and the dominos begin to fall.
The Return is a strong first novel I’m pleased to have caught up with. Out of the starting blocks, Harrison shows a good grip on her subject, avoiding the first novel writer’s urge to overstuff the narrative. In doing so, she produced a taut, stream-lined supernatural thriller that explores the lengths and limits of female friendships under duress.
© 2026 Randy Money
Hardback | Hodder & Stoughton
THE RETURN by Rachel Harrison
September 2020 | 304 pages
ISBN: 978-1529351958
