Sugaring Off

By: Gillian French

ITW Thriller Award Finalist

A dazzling and evocative novel about love and loss—with a dash of thrilling mystery—for fans of Mindy McGinnis and Courtney Summers.

Owl has always been her freest self in the mountains, tracking, hiking, and exploring the steep forested acres of her aunt and uncle’s maple sugar farm. They never speak of the childhood tragedy that left her partially deaf and sent her father to jail. All Owl wants is to stay safe at the farm, her favorite place in the world, her refuge from those who would treat her differently.

Owl’s sheltered existence is blown wide open by Cody—the magnetic, dangerous young man hired to help with the season’s sugaring off. Cody seems to see the real her, to look past her hearing loss in a way no one else does. Together, they find comfort in their similarities and exhilaration in their differences, and risk a romance their families are desperate to stop.

​But then Owl hears her father will be released from prison, and a seemingly motiveless murder shakes the foundations of her small town. When the crime draws all eyes to Cody, Owl realized he is in far more serious trouble than anyone knows—and it’s followed him to her mountain.

Critic reviews

ITW Thriller Award Finalist

"As in French’s other books, she treats her working-class characters with compassion but not preciousness, with a third-person narration that shows the complications of small-town life without exploiting it for drama.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"Paced with the smoothness of flowing maple sugar, this book is to be savored."—SLJ

"As ever, French weaves her storylines deftly…By the time a thriller plot kicks in, readers will be thoroughly embedded."—Kirkus Reviews

"At turns lyrical and stark, Sugaring Off is a foray into the wilderness of New Hampshire’s mountains, a sensitive portrait of coming of age in rural America, and a spine-tingling thriller. Gillian French, like Delia Owens and Kristin Hannah, weaves her characters and the natural world they inhabit together masterfully."—Cameron Kelly Rosenblum, author of The Stepping Off Place, a Kirkus Best Book of 2020

"A work of great beauty. Part mystery, part a story of love and loss, it’s all heart."—Betty Culley, award-winning author of Three Things I Know Are True

Solid read

This was a good book that kept me entertained throughout. A bit of a slow starter, but interesting and engaging overall.

Response to adversity-- a coming of age story

A profound tale of survival thatbshow cases the aftermath of trauma and the resilience of human existence.
Owl (Rochelle) is a teenager coming into her own identity in the mapel Forrest where she has been raised by her uncle (a wounded veteran of Iraq) and aunt after her father's beating nearly killed her. She is hard if hearing because of that beating. She eventually develops a relationship with Cody, who is working for her Uncle and also trying to escape a bad former life because of a drug-addicted mother.

Owl's story and the story of Owl's community highlights the many ways people respond to the hardest parts of life. The story emphasizes community, friendship, love, and family.

As a particular note, Owl is hard if hearing. This story does not centralize deafness, but deafness is a critical piece of her life and experience. The integration of deafness is accurate, with the exception of how accurate her speech reading is.

TW: abuse, violence, gun violence, drug dealer

Read as book with audiobook