On Sawkill Rock, a quiet little island, girls go missing. They just disappear, and having been doing so for years. Yet, no one seems very concerned — life goes on, explanations aren’t needed. And there’s a legend of a creature who lives on the island, who takes the girls for himself…takes them into the woods…
Sawkill Girls focuses on three teenage girls, shortly after the disappearance yet another. Zoey’s father is the sheriff, and she recently lost her best friend under mysterious circumstances that no one but Zoey seems to care about. Marion has just moved to the island with her grieving mother and gorgeous sister, and realizes rather quickly that this place has secrets. And Val — Val is beautiful and popular and terrifying. Val is also a Mortimer. “There was a magnetism to the Mortimer women, and they knew it, and they used it. It was their right, this witchery; they’d given up their souls for it.”
I don’t want to give away too much, because I went into this one knowing almost nothing about the plot and I encourage you to do the same. But basically, Marion arrives on the island after the death of her father. Her sister quickly falls in with the Mortimer girl and the popular crowd. And when more girls go missing, Zoey teams up with Marion to figure out once and for all why young girls keep disappearing on the island. I will say: the explanation was not at all what I expected, but I love how Legrand lays it out and then runs with it.