Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood @StMartinsPress #bookreview #historical

Title: Rust & Stardust

Author: T. Greenwood

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publication Date: August 7, 2018

Page Count: 368

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Camden, NJ, 1948. When 11 year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth’s, she has no way of knowing that 52 year-old Frank LaSalle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he’s an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute—unless she does as he says.

This chilling novel traces the next two harrowing years as Frank mentally and physically assaults Sally while the two of them travel westward from Camden to San Jose, forever altering not only her life, but the lives of her family, friends, and those she meets along the way.

Based on the experiences of real-life kidnapping victim Sally Horner and her captor, whose story shocked the nation and inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write his controversial and iconic Lolita, this heart-pounding story by award-winning author T. Greenwood at last gives a voice to Sally herself.

Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood is a historical fiction read that is based on the real life kidnapping of eleven year old Sally Horner. The author has taken the basis of Sally’s abduction and added fictional details to her story to bring her time in captivity to life.

In 1948 Sally Horner had wanted nothing more than to join the popular girls club at her school so when they approached her claiming to want to be friends Sally of course was excited. The girls told Sally in order to enter the club all she had to do was steal something from the local store.

As Sally wandered the store looking for something to take what she doesn’t realize is she has an audience, fifty two year old Frank LaSalle. As Sally tries to exit the story Frank approaches her and claims to be F.B.I. taking her away due to the theft. Before you know it Frank takes Sally across the country all with threats to keep her from fighting back.

Again, I’m always quite interested when an author takes a real life event I can look up and see the details of and puts their own spin on the story. I wasn’t familiar with Sally’s story before reading this but a lot of people may be since her story also inspired Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita but whether familiar or not it should still be a compelling tale. Obviously this one has some tough material in it reading what could have happened to young Sally but the author didn’t go overly graphic and it was done quite well with an ease to the writing. When finished I’d definitely recommend checking this one out.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

T. GREENWOOD’s novels have sold over 250,000 copies. She has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, Christopher Isherwood Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Maryland State Arts Council. Her novel Bodies of Water was a 2014 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist; Two Rivers and Grace were each named Best General Fiction Book at the San Diego Book Awards, and Where I Lost Her was a Globe and Mail bestseller in 2016. Greenwood lives with her family in San Diego.