A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue

"A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue is gripping, compassionate, and impossible to put down. Mary Carroll Moore's highly developed skills as a storyteller result in this gorgeously written and well-layered novel about the true nature of family—whether present, missing, or seemingly broken beyond repair."
--Jonathan Odell, author of The Healing
 
What if your life depended on a sister who doesn't know you exist? And she'd probably hate you, if she found out her father had a secret family?
 
Kate Fisher and Red Nelson are women pilots and estranged sisters from opposite sides of a fractured family. They are thrown together in a suspenseful drama of Search & Rescue in the Adirondack mountains of New York State when Red is framed for the brutal attack on the manager of her indie rock band.
 
Her dying mother begs her to flee for sanctuary to the only family Red doesn't yet know--her sister Kate. But dramatic crosswinds take her plane into a spin. She emergency lands in a remote gorge. Kate, a Search & Rescue worker, is called to the crash site of Red's plane. Kate must solve the mystery, but clues lead her to a dangerous reunion with her sister. Then the real attacker comes after Red and threatens Kate's family, including her daughter, Molly, who decides to hide Red on their property. Concern over Molly's safety forces the two sisters to face past secrets and present dangers, stage a real rescue, and begin to repair the broken but longed-for family they come from.
 
A cross-generational family saga with fast-paced tension, called "an exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters," (Kirkus Review, selected for Kirkus magazine) that "deftly balances the tension and danger of a crime thriller with the emotion and compassion of a family saga" (Independent Book Review), A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue is a literary thriller that explores the unexpected gift of found family in times of loss and tragedy, the forging of a meaningful but complex sister relationship between two related strangers, and the discovery, by three women of different generations, that by saving each other, they save themselves.
 
"Moore's engaging offering not only gets across the ruggedness of the Adirondacks setting . . . but also presents a touching tale of siblings [who] forge a believable path forward. An exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters."
-Kirkus Reviews
 
"Moore finds suspense in the chase, in vividly described search-and-rescue scenes, and in surprising family relations. The story is fast-paced, and Moore deftly explores and develops relationship dynamics, both familial and romantic, and what someone is willing to do and forgive for the people they care about. The ending will leave suspense readers—and lovers of complex sister relationships—feeling satisfied."
--Booklife/Publisher's Weekly

Mary Carroll Moore is the Amazon-bestselling and award-winning author of three novels: A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue (2023), Last Bets (2024), and the PEN/Faulkner-nominated young adult novel, Qualities of Light (2009). Her writing has been featured on NPR and in the New York Times. She received her MFA from Goddard College and has taught throughout the US and abroad at various writing schools and universities since 1998. Her writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards "Reader's Choice" award. Before moving into fiction, she worked as a chef, a cooking-school owner, a cookbook author, and a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her first cookbook won a Julia Child/IACP award. Over two hundred of her essays, stories, and articles have appeared in magazines and literary journals. She lives in New Hampshire with her family.