Thank you so much Hollie over at Verve Books for inviting me on this tour! This was such a wonderful discovery, Heather Young is definitely a new author to watch, I cannot wait to read her second novel “The Distant Dead” due to be published in Spring 2022!
—Synopsis–
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family – her father takes his own life, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine. For Justine, the lake house offers freedom and stability – a way to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the home she never had. But the long Minnesota winter is just beginning. The house is cold and dilapidated. The dark, silent lake is isolated and eerie. Her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more about the summer of 1935 than he’s telling.
Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives to steal her inheritance, and the man she left launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house haunted by the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.
—Review—
“The things we do for love are the hardest things to regret.”
What a truly impressive debut!
Heather Young transports you with so much ease and through beautiful writing to this mysterious lake in Minnesota. She wittily brings out every little detail of the lives of the Evans’s girls – past, present, future.
Alternating between Lucy’s and Justine’s stories, you get to meet all the protagonists, who drag you in this fabulous family portrait, however dysfunctional it is, analysing the cause and effect of their actions, their choices, the secrets they keep and the price they paid.
Through Lily, you share history, ever so slowly pulling the thread, unravelling the mystery of what happened to her sister Emily. Poor little Emily, overprotected by their mother, despised by her sisters, adored by her father. As Lucy exorcises her demons, freeing herself from her regrets, you share the weights of the secrets, you become part of this “last summer” when everything changed, connecting with her fate.
Through her eyes, you understand the bonds of the past, with her sister Lilith, the Miller bothers their neighbours, and Justine’s mother: Maurie, who left the lake as soon as she could, never to return.
Through Justine, you get to grow and evolve, trying to learn lessons from the past, witnessing how her ancestors have shaped her future through their destiny, how the choices we make impact future generations, how it impacts our roots and behaviours, showing how what is unconsciously passed down can manifest in different ways, but more importantly how one can shake things around.
It is so easy to fall into old habits, mirroring what we have seen done all of our lives; through understanding where we come from, we can hope to move forward in the right direction. With Lucy’s inheritance, Justine is given the chance to start over, to escape the toxic relationship she is in, but more importantly the chance to find herself, and give to her daughters what none of the Evans girls ever had.
“Please remember […] all of us. We are the ghosts of lives stolen and lives never lived.”
Atmospheric, gripping, thought provoking, I can only praise this book! Such a beautiful story about family, love, tragedy, building tension throughout and never letting you down!
With Love
AGJ
Out now with Verve Books
—About the Author – Heather Young—
HEATHER YOUNG is the author of two novels. Her debut, The Lost Girls, won the Strand Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for an Edgar Award. Her second novel, The Distant Dead has also been nominated for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Novel. A former antitrust and intellectual property litigator, she traded the legal world for the literary one and earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2011. She lives in Mill Valley, California, where she writes, bikes, hikes, and reads books by other people that she wishes she’d written.
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