Do Not Become Alarmed: A Novel [Paperback]

The moving and suspenseful new novel that Ann Patchett calls smart and thrilling and impossible to put down... the book that every reader longs for.

“This summer’s undoubtable smash hit… an addictive, heart-palpitating story.” —Marie Claire

The sun is shining, the sea is blue, the children have disappeared.

When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise,everyone is thrilled. The adults are lulled by the ship’s comfort and ease. The fourchildren—ages six to eleven—love the nonstop buffet and their newfound independence.But when they all go ashore for an adventure in Central America, a series of minormisfortunes and miscalculations leads the families farther from the safety of the ship. Oneminute the children are there, and the next they’re gone.
 
The disintegration of the world the families knew—told from the perspectives of both theadults and the children—is both riveting and revealing. The parents, accustomed tosecurity and control, turn on each other and blame themselves, while the seeminglyhelpless children discover resources they never knew they possessed.
 
Do Not Become Alarmedis a story about the protective force of innocence and the limitsof parental power, and an insightful look at privileged illusions of safety. Celebrated forher spare and moving fiction, Maile Meloy has written a gripping novel about howquickly what we count on can fall away, and the way a crisis shifts our perceptions ofwhat matters most.“A very smart work of literary fiction… Meloy is such a deft writer that she keeps the adventure plot whizzing along even as she deepens our sense of the characters and the unfamiliar culture they have to navigate.”—Fresl“A