This book was not what I was expecting. It’s so much more.

Watch Over Me is a gorgeously written story of survival, found families, and coming to peace with one’s past. It’s a story of suffering and recovery, of facing one’s fears and choosing a way forward.

Mila, at age eighteen, has finished high school, and after living with kind foster parents who are eager to start over with a new baby to care for, she needs a place to put down roots at the start of her life as a young adult. She’s thrilled to be offered a place at The Farm, a refuge run by a warm couple named Terry and Julia, who take in abandoned and hopeless children and give them a safe place to grow.

Mila will be one of three interns, young adults who teach school for the younger children and who work as part of the farm’s collective, cooking, cleaning, and taking the farm’s flowers and produce to the weekly farmers market. Meanwhile, she’ll be living in a small no-frills cabin heated by a wood-burning stove, sharing meals with the family in the big house, and participating in the simple, isolated life that the group enjoys, far from the nearest town.

Though she tries to fit in, Mila is constantly worried about her place. She has secrets from her past, and while she tries to reassure herself that she is good, she’s fearful that the family will turn her away if they know the truth about what she’s done. Still, she bonds quickly with Lee, the 9-year-old boy who she’ll be teaching. She recognizes that he’s been hurt in his past, and by sharing some of her own pain, she hopes to help him open up and start to be less afraid.

And one more thing: There are ghosts. Each night, shimmering ghostly children play on the fields of the farm, visible to all the farm’s residents. No one seems particularly freaked out by them — they’re just part of what makes the place unique.

As Mila settles in, memories of her past creep back in, slowly at first, then threatening to overwhelm her. The story of what she’s been through is horrible, and it quickly becomes clear that this is a girl who no one protected, and who was endangered by the person who should have put Mila’s safety first.

I won’t explain how the ghosts fit into the story, but the more I read, the more captivated I was by the farm, its people, and how Mila’s past comes to haunt her present. I loved the characters and the relationships, but most of all loved Mila, with her doubts and uncertainties and fears — but also because of her big heart and capacity for love, and how badly she needs a place to belong.

Watch Over Me is unsettling and beautiful, and I’m pretty sure I’ll want to go back to it and read it all over again, just to let it all sink in. Highly recommended.