
In "Penitence," former attorney Kristin Koval delivers 2025's most anticipated thriller exploring whether we're defined by our worst actions. This Barnes & Noble Discover Pick examines juvenile justice with such chilling nuance that editor Gabrielle Viner calls it a story that "compels you to believe in forgiveness."
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In the quiet mountain town of Lodgepole, Colorado, a gunshot shatters more than just the night's silence. Thirteen-year-old Nora Sheehan sits in a jail cell after killing her fourteen-year-old brother Nico. Her parents, Angie and David, are left to navigate the wreckage of their family life-crime scene tape across their children's bedrooms, a funeral with a closed casket, and the impossible weight of grief that comes when one child takes another's life. The small-town police are unprepared for this situation, and the Sheehans find themselves thrust into a nightmare they never imagined possible. Their home, once a sanctuary, has become a crime scene. Their family, once whole, now exists in fragments. And the question that haunts every corner of their shattered lives remains unanswered: Why would Nora shoot her brother?