Abroad

It all started very simply: A girl packed a suitcase full of soap and clean underwear and went to Italy. She was young--open as an empty highway. She met some people there. Love happened. And then, her ending began.
     Grifonia, Italy. Home to thousands of years of secrets. Upon entering those ancient walls for her year abroad, Tabitha Deacon is entranced. And under the influence of a new, wealthy group of friends from her program, Taz quickly falls into a life of secretive, eccentric parties in abandoned cathedrals and medieval villas that are like nothing she's ever imagined. But Claire, Taz's plainspoken, unsettlingly beautiful roommate, is worried that Taz isn't really suited to her new bacchanalian lifestyle. A true friend, Claire wants to get to know Taz as she really is. Then, when both girls fall in love with the same quiet Italian with an odd, undisclosed past, everyone's morals are called into question. As the girls' boundaries disappear, Taz and Claire slide toward a terrifying end that seems almost inevitable--as if there is a force of history manipulating them from beneath the ancient city herself.
     With a mesmerizing, steady hand, Crouch serves up a new novel that is part murder mystery, part modern Henry Jamesian exploration of the moral traps of modern girlhood. A page-turning, literary thriller in the best tradition, delivered with the dark wit and sure language the novelist has become known for.