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*LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist*
Alternating between past and present, a forbidden love story blooms in the sexually oppressive early-1960’s in T. Greenwood’s shimmering, haunting novel that explores the nature of memory, aging, feminism, lust, and most importantly, love in a tumultuous era.
In this deeply tender novel, acclaimed novelist T. Greenwood moves deftly between the past and present to create a poignant and wonderfully moving story of friendship, the resonance of memories, and the love that keeps us afloat.
In 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape—from her husband’s demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.
Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The relationship that deepens between the two women offers a solace Billie has never known, until their secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.
Fifty years later, Ted and Eva’s son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers.
