Purchase
Random House
May 2025
On Sale: May 20, 2025
352 pages
ISBN: 0593730003
EAN: 9780593730003
Kindle: B0DDSPK9MF
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Thriller Domestic | Thriller Psychological
ONE OF THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS’ MOST ANTICIPATED MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR
For decades, the whereabouts of The Fifteen has been an unsolved mystery. All the members of this reclusive commune outside Philadelphia vanished twenty years ago, except for one: a twelve-year-old girl found wandering alone on the side of the road.
In the years since that morning, Lee Burton has tried to put the pain of her past behind her, building a new identity for herself with a doting husband and seven-month-old daughter, Lucy. But motherhood is proving a bigger challenge than she anticipated. She doesn’t want to let Lucy out of her sight even for a moment. She can’t return to work. She’s not sleeping, and she has started spiraling into paranoia.
Then a stranger shows up on her doorstep, offering answers to all of Lee’s questions about her past—if Lee could only trust that this woman is who she says she is. Can Lee keep her safe, stable life? Or will new revelations about “the cult that went missing” shatter everything? In The Ascent, Allison Buccola has crafted a nerve-rattling thriller about motherhood, identity, and the truths we think we know about our families.
| 
© 2003-2026