risten L. Berry’s gripping debut novel, We Don’t Talk About Carol, follows Sydney Singleton, a former crime reporter who returns to North Carolina following her grandmother’s death to help her family sort through the estate. While clearing out the house, Sydney discovers a hidden photograph of a teenage girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to her. She quickly learns that the mystery girl is her aunt, Carol, who disappeared in the 1960s—a relative her family has intentionally never spoken about.
As Sydney digs deeper, she uncovers a painful history: Carol was one of six Black girls from their North Carolina community who vanished during the same era, their cases largely ignored or forgotten by the broader public. Driven by an investigative instinct to uncover what happened, Sydney begins unraveling decades of silence.
However, her pursuit is perilous. Years prior, Sydney’s extreme obsession with a missing person case resulted in a severe nervous breakdown. Now, balancing the emotional toll of a crumbling marriage and intense fertility treatments, her relentless investigation threatens to push her past healthy limits once more. Seamlessly weaving an intricate mystery with deep cultural critique, the novel explores how far someone will go to reclaim the stories lost to history.