Nooga

Seventeen-year-old Chattanooga "Nooga" Talley has always hated the strange name her mother gave her. When a passport application reveals that Asa Talley-the man who raised her-is not her biological father, Nooga begins searching for the truth her parents tried to bury.

Her search leads to Philip Kersey, the respected founder of Greybranch Youth Services, a refuge for vulnerable teenage girls. Kersey welcomes Nooga as the daughter he claims was stolen from him. Intelligent, powerful, and attentive, he offers her something she has always wanted: an explanation for who she is and where she came from.

Then a frightened resident gives Nooga a warning.

Kersey keeps copies of the girls' private stories. Those records have been used to silence families, employees, former residents, and anyone who threatens Greybranch. Girls who ask too many questions are quietly transferred beyond the reach of people trying to help them.

Nooga initially attempts to expose Kersey legally, but witnesses recant, evidence disappears, and several residents are scheduled to be moved. Convinced that the lawful process is too slow, she begins using Kersey's own methods-deception, coercion, blackmail, and the weaponization of other people's secrets.

The deeper Nooga enters her father's hidden world, the more she learns about her mother, Willa, who once fled Chattanooga while pregnant and later returned seeking revenge. Willa named her daughter after the city where she escaped Kersey and chose to begin again.

But Willa also left Nooga a warning: saving people can become another form of controlling them.

As Nooga races to stop Kersey and protect the girls of Greybranch, she must decide how much of her father she is willing to become-and whether justice achieved through corruption is still justice.