Carter Wilson takes readers on a wild ride as Penny Bly, a genius savant with a high IQ, decides to go find her father, who abandoned her after she was pushed down the stairs when she was seven years old. Penny’s been sheltered her whole life, attending the Willow Brook Institute for the Brain and living with her alcoholic mother. But now, on her twenty-first birthday and after receiving a dismissive card from her father, Penny is determined to enter the wild and track down the man who left her broken and abandoned in THE FATHER SHE WENT TO FIND.
Penny has her father’s address, a treasure map, and ninety-six dollars in cash when she sets out to find her father. When she runs into Travis at a local mall, she finds someone to come along on her journey. As the two embark on their trip, Penny finds herself thrown into circumstances beyond her control, and her father’s warnings of dragons in the world prove true. From loan sharks, hitmen, bad cops, seedy hotels, a diner owner in hiding, and an organization interested in Penny’s brain, Penny and Travis encounter them all. It will take Penny’s unique abilities, to outsmart, outmaneuver, and outrun the dangers that are tailing her. Will her journey bring her closure? Or will it be the end of the road for Penny?
THE FATHER SHE WENT TO FIND is a thrilling psychological foray into a young woman’s journey to understand her childhood and the people who abandoned her. Penny has unique abilities, such as a photographic memory and associating colors with numbers. She has book smarts, but she lacks street smarts, and her naiveté about the word places her at a distinct disadvantage. Yet, Penny has bravado and processes information quickly. Along with her acquired travel companions, she maneuvers around the bad guys with reckless abandon and continues on her search for her father. Wilson’s writing is propulsive and moves along quickly, keeping readers engaged and on the edge of their seats. This wild, twisting, and harrowing ride is entertaining, surprising, and fun all the way until the end, when Penny literally falls out of the sky. Enjoy the trip. It’s well worth it.
A road trip to find closure… or a reckless chase that could turn deadly?
Penny has never met anyone smarter than her. That's par for the course when you're a savant--one of less than one hundred in the world. But despite her photographic memory and super-powered intellect, there's one mystery Penny's never been able to solve: why did her father leave when she was in a coma at age seven, and where is he now?
On Penny's twenty-first birthday, she receives a card in the mail from him, just as she has every year since he left. But this birthday card is different. For the first time ever, there's a return address. And a goodbye.
Penny doesn't know the world beyond her mother's house and the special school she's attended since her unusual abilities revealed themselves, but the mystery of her father's disappearance becomes her new obsession. For the first time ever she decides to leave home, to break free of everything that has kept her safe, and use her gifts to answer the questions that have always eluded her. What Penny doesn't realize is she might not be able to outsmart a world far more complicated and dangerous than she'd ever imagined...