When Maya Taylor, an English professor with a tendency to hide in her books, sends her daughter to Florida to look after a friend's child, she does so with the best of intentions; it's a chance for Ellie, twenty and spiraling, to rebuild her life. But in the sprawling hours of one humid afternoon, Ellie makes a mistake she cannot take back. In two separate timelines--before and after the catastrophe--Maya and Ellie must try to repair their fractured relationship and find a way to transcend not only their differences but also their more troubling similarities. [Melding] psychological insight, precise plotting and limpid prose (Huffington Post), Lynn Steger Strong traces the anatomy of a mistake and the weight of culpability. Hold Still marks a taut and propulsive debut that builds to a perfect crescendo, an ending that is both surprising and true (Marcy Dermansky, author of The Red Car).