The second thing I understand: I cannot fall back down that rabbit hole. And then she ran away to New York City, leaving all that dust behind her. If you looked hard enough, you might even find my name traced in that filmy coating, there between the expired packets of potato chips and the fading jars of salsa. You’d see rusted ice freezers next to sliding-glass doors, and nine-dollar bottles of liquor on dusty shelves. You’d catch a glimpse of untended roads littered with potholes, and windowless convenience stores set down on otherwise empty lots. If you were to look back, you’d see all the four-way stop signs and the star-spangled flags of small-town America waving us goodbye.

Though I am named for a girl who fell down a rabbit hole, I feel in this moment as if I have climbed up out of the darkness and left the distortion of my old life behind me. There are people everywhere, rushing to its rhythm, and I stand open-mouthed in the middle of the widest street I’ve ever seen, smelling, tasting the real world for the very first time. My feet have barely hit the pavement, the bus that delivered me here has only just hissed away from the curb, when I feel the pulse of New York, the hammering. The first thing I understand about the city I will die in: it beats like a heart.

If she keeps looking, can she give this unidentified Jane Doe the ending and closure she deserves?Ī “heartbreaking, beautiful, and hugely important novel” (Rosie Walsh, New York Times bestselling author), Before You Knew My Name doesn’t just wonder whodunnit-it also asks who was she? And what did she leave behind? Excerpt Ruby just wants to forget what she saw…but she can’t seem to stop thinking about the young woman she found. Until she stumbles upon a woman’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman.Īlice is sure Ruby is the key to solving the mystery of her short life and tragic death. After travelling halfway around the world, she’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple.

Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. She may be dead but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe. When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Two women-one alive, one dead-are brought together in the dark underbelly of New York City to solve a tragic murder. This is not just another novel about a dead girl. “A brave and timely novel.” -Clare Mackintosh, internationally bestselling author of Hostage Winner of Crime Debut and Readers’ Choice Awards-Sisters in CrimeĮditors’ Choice/Staff Pick by The New York Times Book Review

The love of my life rosie walsh summary