From the co-author of THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY comes a wise, witty and exuberant novel that illuminates the power of loyalty and forgiveness, memory and truth, and the courage it takes to do what’s right.  

In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment. Within days, Layla finds herself far from her accustomed social whirl, assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia. But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty.

At the Romeyn house, 12-year-old Willa is desperate to learn everything in her quest to acquire her favorite virtues of ferocity and devotion --- a search that leads her into a thicket of mysteries, including the questionable business that occupies her charismatic father and the reason her adored aunt Jottie remains unmarried. Layla’s arrival brings to light buried secrets that will tell a new tale about the Romeyns. As Willa peels back the layers of her family’s past, and Layla delves deeper into town legend, everyone involved is transformed --- and their personal histories completely rewritten.