Lay Your Body Down: A Novel of Suspense

"In Amy Suiter Clarke's brilliant sophomore thriller, a young woman returns to her rural Minnesota hometown for the funeral of her ex boyfriend-her first love-who died suspiciously, only to confront the ways a radical pastor's warped evangelical beliefs have poisoned the whole town"--
Returning to her rural Minnesota hometown, a young woman attends the funeral of the woman her boyfriend left her for and is determined to cut through the corruption and lies of the cult-like mega-church she left behind. 75,000 first printing.
“Lay Your Head Down has everything I love in a good thriller—family drama, a determined main character, and an unflinching look at a timely issue.... will stay with you long after you reach its gripping conclusion.”—Kellye Garrett, award-winning and Edgar-nominated author of Like A SisterA young woman returns to her rural Minnesota hometown, where a radical evangelical pastor has poisoned everyone’s minds—and may be covering up a murder.After Del Walker fled her small hometown and its cult-like church, she vowed to never return. The man she loved, Lars, left her to marry the local golden girl Eve, and their romance is now the focus of Eve’s viral blog espousing the pastor’s conservative philosophy about women and marriage. But six years later, Lars is suddenly killed, and she’s convinced it couldn’t have been an accident. When Del returns to her hometown for the funeral, she discovers the now mega-church—and the insidious, patriarchal teachings of Pastor Rick Franklin—has grown not only in size but in influence. Eve was clearly discontent in her marriage, despite the carefully constructed “Noble Wife” positivity of her blog posts, and Del knows better than anyone just how far she will go to get what she wants. Del is determined to cut through the church’s lies and corruption to find out who killed Lars—even if it means confronting the religious trauma she’s spent years trying to bury.
In Amy Suiter Clarke’s brilliant sophomore thriller, a small Minnesota town is in turmoil as a devout Christian blogger is on trial for murdering her husband, a radical pastor’s warped evangelical beliefs have poisoned the town, and one woman’s past comes back to haunt her.It’s been a decade since Deja Walker fled her claustrophobic hometown and the cult-like megachurch she grew up in, but now her old life seems to be in the news every day. Her former best friend—and viral Christian relationship blogger—Eve Oback is on trial for killing her husband, the man Deja once thought she herself was going to marry. Deja knows that Eve’s holier-than-thou blog persona is a fraud, but as the trial starts, it’s clear that the case against Eve is thin. No one in Boyd, Minnesota, is talking—and Deja has had enough. Even though she had sworn she would never again go back to her hometown, she is determined to do whatever it takes to see Eve Oback convicted.Even as Deja becomes more obsessed with digging up dirt in Boyd, her certainty that she knows everything about Eve begins to fray. Her friend made their pastor’s Noble Wife philosophy a global phenomenon, becoming an evangelist for the obsessive commitment to purity and devotion to upholding the dreams of men. Deja has always assumed Eve got everything she wanted, but the more time she spends in Boyd, the less sure she is. There is a darkness in Messiah Church and radical pastor Rick Franklin’s teachings that has infected the entire town. It may very well hold the answer to what really happened to Lars—the man Deja loved—the man she might not have known at all.
In Amy Suiter Clarke’s brilliant sophomore thriller, a small Minnesota town is in turmoil as a devout Christian blogger is on trial for murdering her husband, a radical pastor’s warped evangelical beliefs have poisoned the town, and one woman’s past comes back to haunt her.