First published 2018
Clare Hobbes stands on the weekend of her wedding when elderly Edith Herron gives her the courage to break off her engagement to a possessive fiancé. Three weeks later, Edith dies and leaves Clare an unexpected inheritance: Blue Sky House, a former guest house surrounded by crepe myrtle and hydrangea on the marshy edge of a Delaware bay. Though empty for years, the house holds Clare with its walls of old photographs taken by Edith and her husband Joseph. When Clare discovers two mysterious ledgers hidden beneath the kitchen sink, she realizes Edith was no ordinary woman. With help from her mother Viviana, surrogate mother Cornelia Brown, and former boyfriend Dev Tremain, Clare pieces together the house's secrets. The decades-old mystery reveals dark secrets, passionate love, heartbreaking sacrifice, and incredible courage. As Clare peels back layers of Edith's life in the 1950s, she makes startling discoveries about her own past and future.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Blue Sky House, Delaware
Period: 1950s
1 pages · Audio CD · William Morrow & Company