There’s past tense and future tense, and then there’s Leavitt-tense. Leavitt-tense is when the main storyline so seamlessly intertwines with backstory that the reader can’t remember how it is they have come to know these characters so deeply. All they know is that they have.

Is This Tomorrow is a mystery with suspense enough. A child goes missing and his community struggles to carry on with no answers as to why or how. Were this story to include only the linear plotline, it would be as gripping. But Leavitt isn’t the kind of author who goes for suspense alone. Leavitt’s real strength lies in the characters. Flawed, scared and sometimes deceitful, these characters are your brother, your parents, your children, and perhaps even you. This is why Leavitt’s plots can never stop at suspenseful and always move on to haunting.

The 1950’s setting is pitch-perfect. You can practically feel the uneven shaggy carpeting of Eve’s house under your toes and taste the warming nutmeg in her pies. And you can smell the animosity that this Norman Rockwell-type community feels for a divorced Jewish mother who dares to date and has to work. Is This Tomorrow is a gem. And (hopefully) a future film.