by Sarah Jio
First published 2013
Ada Santorini arrives at houseboat number seven on Seattle's Boat Street, escaping tragedy from her former East Coast existence. The floating community on Lake Union shelters artists and free spirits who guard a terrible secret from 1959. Inside her new home, Ada discovers a trunk belonging to Penny Wentworth, a bride who occupied the same houseboat fifty years before. Ada becomes obsessed with learning what happened to Penny, drawn deeper into the mystery of her predecessor's disappearance. The residents of Boat Street know more than they reveal about that fateful night decades ago. As Ada investigates Penny's story, she uncovers connections between the young woman's vanishing and the community's buried shame. The search for answers forces Ada to confront her own painful past while the truth about Penny threatens to upend everything the floating neighborhood has worked to conceal. Two women separated by half a century find their stories intertwining across time.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, mystery, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: past-and-present, secrets
Setting: Seattle, Boat Street, Lake Union
Period: 1959, present-day
Paperback