The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

A simple wrong turn can change everything. Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland discovers this firsthand when, trying to escape the sounds of her mother and brother fighting during a hike, she steps off the Appalachian Trail. In a moment, she is lost, swallowed by a wilderness that is indifferent to her survival. With only a portable radio, limited supplies, and her wits, Trisha faces the escalating terrors of the deep woods. As darkness falls, the things that go bump in the night are no longer just stories.

To fight off the crushing loneliness and growing fear, Trisha tunes her radio to the Boston Red Sox games, finding a strange comfort in the voice of the sportscaster and the performance of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. As her ordeal stretches on, imagination and reality begin to blur, and she starts to believe Tom Gordon is with her, a guardian in the menacing forest. But she also feels another presence, something else in the woods, and it is watching, waiting, and hunting. This is not just a story of survival, but a psychological journey into the primal fears that lurk just off the path.