First published 2010
Joe Spooner returns from World War II and brings his family back to normal life. Then Peter Coleridge appears at their door. The young ex-GI served alongside Joe in postwar Austria, and his movie-star looks immediately captivate Joe's daughter Evie. She falls hard for Peter despite the mysteries that follow him. Joe and Peter share war stories, but Evie senses undercurrents she cannot decode. A web of deception slowly tightens around her family. When tragedy strikes, it destroys everything Evie thought she knew about her parents and her world. The truths she held dear crumble into lies. Peter stands at the center of secrets that reach back to Austria and forward into her family's destruction. Evie must choose between the parents who raised her and the man who has captured her heart. Someone will pay the price for the lies that bind them all together.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, mystery, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: deception, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Austria
Period: Post-World War II
272 pages · Paperback · Scholastic
Content warnings: death