Sera is convinced she’s the one.
No one is a bigger fan of Rachels true crime podcast about missing women. No one knows the stories better. And she’s sure no one knows Rachel better. So when Rachel herself disappears, Sera is convinced she’s the only one who can find out what happened to her.
She makes her way out to the country – home of the secluded family ranch where Rachel lived and starts collecting clues – looking for signs. She knows that Rachel would be so pleased with her.
Until she begins to realize that Rachel’s not the only woman who has gone missing from this ranch.
oh, and THIS ENTIRE TOWN IS INSANE.
“A disquieting and distinctly creepy debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Not even kidding. These people were cuckoo to the nth degree, with a heavy dose of just plain creepy. I felt like every page gave me chills and I was literally screaming “RUN!” every time Sera met someone new.
But at the same time… I wondered: Are they all as bizarre as I think they are, or is Sera the most disturbing of them all? I mean, the obsession with Rachel is next level infatuation.
At about the halfway point, I couldn’t put this one down. It got dark.
It got more and more strange and twisty as it went on, and by the ending – it was just so sinister and obsessive, and I felt so deliciously unsettled when it was over.
And that creepy, unsettling feeling sticks with you well after you’re done reading… in the way the best of these types of stories do.
“Sleek, exciting, and twisty.”
—Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder
Happy pub day to this fun and twisted binge-worthy debut!
Thank you to Berkley Publishing for the gifted book and having me on the If I Disappear Blog Blitz!
If I Disappear is available TODAY! You can grab it here.
- Publisher : Berkley (January 26, 2021)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593198220
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593198223
About the Book:
When her favorite true crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman sets out to investigate and plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession.
Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She’s sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it’s time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts.
Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel’s small hometown to begin her search. She’s convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won’t be the last…
Rachel did try to warn her.
About the Author
Eliza Jane Brazier is an author, screenwriter, and journalist. This is her adult debut. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is developing If I Disappear for television. Eliza Jane Brazier is available for interviews.
Berkley has generously provided an excerpt of If I Disappear – check it out below!
I F I D I S A P P E A R
Nothing truly bad has ever happened to me, and I envy you this, a clear reason: my life changed when, things fell apartwhen. I break a sweat and think it must be my fault.
You became fascinated, first by her disappearance, and then by the disappearances of others: local, national, global. Youresearched, you became a part of the true‑crime community and then you started your own podcast. You wanted to make a difference. You wanted to save someone. You wanted to save everyone.
Episode 14: When I think someone somewhere might hear this . . . when I think anyone anywhere can access it . . . Yes, I don’t have the audience of Dateline or even My Favorite Murder, but the thing about a podcast is, anyone anywhere can listen. And maybe you will be the one to find someone who is missing. Maybe you hold the key to the evidence thatwill solve a murder. Maybe I can be the reason someone is saved.
You broadcast from your house on your parents’ land: a yellow house with a red roof drawn in lines so idealized, itcould be a Disneyland attraction.
I found the ranch website online. It bragged that it was a “family‑run business.” I saw your picture, you for the first time, andyou looked exactly like I thought you would. You looked like me.
Below me the Klamath River is fast and brown. Above me the mountains are piled with trees. From Episode 1, I know thatthey are firs, pines, oaks, maples, madrones, spruce and manzanitas. I recognize this world from your pictures, but I am notprepared for the sheer majesty of it, the car‑commercial, Reese Witherspoon– in‑Wild, Instagram‑is‑not‑enough expanse. I’ve never been anywhere like this. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even know it existed.
I think, oddly, how excited you would be, if you were here with me, diving into your own disappearance, solving your own mystery. I take a deep breath, and I plug in my phone and pressplay. Your voice fills my car, gravelly but discreet, breathing mystery.
I release the parking brake, start the engine and pull back onto the road. I pass a strip of highway dedicated to Dear Mad’m, and I remember you told me her story (Episode 19). Dear Mad’m was an eighty‑year‑old woman who moved to a primitive cabin on the Klamath in the nineteen fifties to garden, hide from cougars and write a book. She decided her life wasn’t over, but to do that, she had to leave behind the world that told her it was. She had to come here.
I am sailing, inspired, when the road curves and I don’t slow fast enough and the car slides and my stomach lurches. Andsud‑ denly I’m absolutely sure I am wrong about everything.
You’re not missing; you just logged off. I will arrive at your yellow house and find you there, and I will say, Hey, I was just in the area, longtime listener. And you will stumble backward, afraid. And when your next episode goes out you will say:
Episode 85:
This morning my psycho stalker showed up at my house, as if she was in the neighborhood. I think she wants to kill me. If something happens to me, her name is Sera Fleece.
She is your typical loser/burnout. You know the type. She thought that if she hit certain markers, made the rightachieve- ments, her life would pedal itself, would speed off so she could just relax, satisfied, achieved. But instead itkept asking her to drive it; it kept sputtering, breaking down, falling apart. She dropped out of college when she got married. Then she was pregnant; then she wasn’t. Her husband left. And she had to start over again. So she got a job but it didn’t pay enough. She found another guy but he didn’t love her enough. So she got another job that paid less, an apartment that charged more. She found a guy who loved her less, and anotherone who loved her even less after that. Every year was less, so she cared less and less.
And then she stopped caring completely. And then she came looking for me.
My hands are shaking as I pull into another turnout. It’s like you can hear my thoughts, wherever you are. It’s like you are watching me. I see vultures circling up ahead, in the space be‑ tween two mountains. And I wonder if they are here for you or me. I wonder how you would tell my story, if I disappeared.
I have gone too far. I missed the turnoff for the ranch, somewhere between the spins and the trees. I have the mile marker (63), but the numbers don’t match, and now my phone screen is a wheel, circling around a lost signal.
You warned me about the phone service. Per Episode 7: There is no cell phone service, none, from Eureka to Yreka except for one huge turnout above the Klamath, just south of Happy Camp, where one network (Verizon) gets service some ofthe time. On any given day there is at least one car parked out there on the edge of the cliff, with the sky overhead, and the signal invisible, somewhere above, so the seeker holds their phone up to the sky.
I was prepared. I took screenshots of the directions on Google Maps. I wrote down the mile marker number, but I still missed your parents’ ranch. I know this when I reach Happy Camp.
BOOKAPOTAMUS 