Safe and Sound Audiobook By Laura McHugh cover art

Safe and Sound

A Novel

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Safe and Sound

By: Laura McHugh
Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Six years after their cousin vanished from their home while they were sleeping, two sisters set out to learn the truth behind what happened—even if it puts their own lives in danger—in this haunting thriller from the internationally bestselling author of What’s Done in Darkness.

“Beautifully written, unflinchingly told, and relentlessly suspenseful.”—Heather Gudenkauf, author of The Overnight Guest

In a town no one ever leaves, there are only so many places to hide.

As kids, Amelia and Kylee were found unharmed in their upstairs bedroom the night their teenage cousin Grace, who was babysitting them, vanished from the farmhouse in Beaumont, Missouri, leaving blood all over the kitchen. Scrappy and driven, Grace, the first in their family to go to college instead of getting married and working at the meatpacking plant, had been on the verge of escaping their dead-end town. Her disappearance is a warning to any local girl who dared hope for better.

Now, as their own high school graduation looms, Amelia and Kylee dream about fleeing Beaumont, but the likelihood of that happening seems as low as that of Grace being found. When human remains are discovered in town, the sisters think they finally know who took Grace—but as they dig deeper into her past, they unearth long-buried secrets and a growing list of suspects.

Amelia and Kylee vow to find Grace, dead or alive. But as they draw closer to the truth and slip further into danger, they question how far someone would go to put a woman in her place, or to cover up a crime. The answer is worse than they could have imagined, and in the end, it won’t just be Grace they’re trying to save—they’ll have to fight for their lives.

©2024 Laura McHugh (P)2024 Random House Audio
Psychological Small Town & Rural Suspense Women Sleuths Exciting Missouri High School
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

“As a long-time fan of Laura McHugh’s work, I was overjoyed to see she has another novel coming our way, set—like the books that precede it—amongst the hardscrabble corners of rural Missouri. . . . McHugh has a precise skill for capturing the low-grade anxieties embedded in many small towns; her stories are taut with that strain, and relish in exploring what happens when the string finally snaps.”Elle

Safe and Sound, by Laura McHugh, is a haunting, intricately layered, and lyrical novel about family secrets, unspoken evil, and the search for the truth, no matter the costs. McHugh masterfully evokes the fabric and landscape of small-town life, the need to escape, and the bonds that hold you tight. Beautifully written, unflinchingly told, and relentlessly suspenseful, Safe and Sound belongs at the top of every to-be-read list.”—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest and Everyone Is Watching

“An evocative, riveting, and gorgeously written mystery, Safe and Sound is a finely detailed exploration of complicated familial bonds and the ways in which our upbringing can hold us captive, even when we try our hardest to break free of the things that haunt us. McHugh is never afraid to take her readers to dark places, and this novel will have you turning pages long into the night.”—Amy Engel, author of I Did It For You and The Roanoke Girls

What listeners say about Safe and Sound

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A wonderful crime thriller in a down and out small rural town

I loved this book. It is a well told and well narrated crime thriller based in a thorough description of a depressing small town in Missouri. There is artful use of flashbacks which weaves this story together to get it to its unexpected conclusion. The narration is very well done.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Touching story that could need non-fiction

Life in a small town through the eyes of a family of women trying to make it as men use and abuse them. Sad and so real-life it hurts.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Slooooow pace

If I had to describe SAFE AND SOUND in one word it would be Bleak.

I listened to this slow-paced well-narrated novel on Audible and kept wondering when the story would pick up. It never did.

Amelia, Kylee and Grace were well-rounded characters with depth born in a rundown town where few escape. Grace took care of and protected her younger cousins. Until she disappeared. Now Amelia and Kylee are the age their older cousin was when she disappeared. With plans of leaving town, the surviving cousins want to find out what happened to Grace before they escape.

Told from Grace’s past perspective and her cousins present, the story of poverty and neglect and how that propelled Grace’s disappearance leads to a surprising conclusion.

Every element of SAFE AND SOUND is done well. I like dark books, but the repetitiveness and slow moving plot had me wishing something would happen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story line

Love the narration. Very good story line and character development. Ending seemed stilted and hurried. The long build up nearly to the last chapter and then quick end.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating suspense story

So many twists and turns! Couldn’t stop listening. Love this author. Have enjoyed all of her books.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

underwhelmed

This story is pretty boring, unbelievable, and the whodunnit is obvious. The author overplayed the white trash aspect, to the point of caricature. The teenage main characters' action were simply not realistic.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!