Sarah Shankman

The letter that arrived from Sam’s mother was postmarked Santa Fe, penned in her mother’s handwriting, and disclosed details only Johanna Adams could know. There was just one catch: Johanna Adams had been dead for thirty-four years. The mind-blowing missive could have been an entry from Sam’s latest book of bizarre anecdotes, American Weird—or an elaborate hoax. Either way, it instantly rekindled Sam’s impossible wish that her mother hadn’t really died in a plane crash when Sam was a child. Fueled by her journalistic instincts—and a daughter’s need for closure—Sam touches down among Santa Fe’s tourists and crystal gazers, jewelry shops and fast-food stands. But only when she summons the courage to knock on the door of Room 409 at the La Fonda Hotel does her surreal, mother-seeking adventure take off with no turning back.