A house on a remote island. A broken family. A decades-old secret.
Can a family secret and feud spanning generations be solved over the course of one summer? In this alternating narrative by from indie bestselling author Erin Soderberg Downing, when cousins Avery and Jax dredge up a dark secret from their parents' childhood, they'll have to decide whether some secrets are better left buried.
When a large, estranged family is mysteriously summoned together for a gathering at their broken-down family home on Crooked Lake, cousins Avery and Jax are the only ones who are able to find reasons to be excited about it.
But not long after they all arrive on the island, the family learns a horrible surprise: their beloved aunt has been diagnosed with ALS. This might be the reunion they'd been hoping for, but it's quickly feeling more like a final farewell.
But as cousins Avery and Jax begin to dig through two generations of history in the long-abandoned house, they also dredge up a dark secret. The drowning of a young girl that shattered the family decades ago. Can they figure out who has been blamed, who is actually responsible, and how to save the pieces of the family that are left? As secrets are unraveled and guilt and mistaken blame are revealed, the truth about what happened on one tragic night could destroy everything they've begun to build during their final moments together, or perhaps it could be the ointment this family needs to heal a wound that they all share. Erin Soderberg Downing grew up exploring the forests and lakes of Northern Minnesota, and to this day, her best ideas for stories often come to her deep in the woods, where she can find plenty of creative space to explore and imagine. She has written more than fifty books, including The Great Peach Experiment series (a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection), the magical middle-grade novel Moon Shadow, and the Puppy Pirates chapter book series. Erin currently lives in Minneapolis with her husband, three adventurous kids, and two very fluffy dogs.
