In real life, a few years ago a cliff near Oso, Washington gave away and a resulting mud slide burried a small sudivision, killing dozens of people. How much of that eveny was due to natural causes and how much to illegal logging practices became the subject of a major investigation and susequent lawsuit.

In Neff's new novel, Second Growth, the reader meets  four characters in their twenties, each figuring out who they are and what they want to be. Unexpectedly each learns something about a new logging project north of Seattle and each, almost unwittingly, becomes involed in its outcome. Real danger soon rears its head and everyone enmeshed in the project must confront it, for their own sake and increasingly, for the sake of others. The action moves from, from curiosity to a fight for survival; from Seattle to the nearby Cascade Mountains and to the edge of Puget Sound.

Traveling alonside of the main characters, the reader experiences changes of scenery and mounting tension as an explosive situation races toward resolution, whatever the cost.

Read, for free, the opening chapters of Second Growth on Authorsden.