A reclusive bookstore owner hoped she'd permanently buried her family's sensational past with a new name. But when the novels she once shared with an old crush begin appearing in the mail, it's clear her true identity is about to be revealed, threatening the new life she has painstakingly built.

Estranged sisters embark on a hiking trip on the tenth anniversary of their parents' deaths in an attempt to reconnect. In the wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula they'll face their deepest fears, question their most dearly held beliefs, and begin to see that perhaps the best way to move forward is the one way they had never considered.

On the night of December 31, 1989—as the Berlin Wall is coming down, the Soviet Union is inching toward democracy, and anything seems possible—a down-on-his luck musician crashes a party and crosses paths with the accomplished and enigmatic young heir to a fading musical dynasty, forever altering both of their futures.

Esther's family has always believed they were descended from a great, though scandalously underappreciated Impressionist-era artist. But when questions arise about her ancestor's greatest work—The Lady with the Dark Hair—her once-solid family history rests on shaky ground as a search for the truth begins.

An anonymous letter from a Very Disappointed Reader sends a novelist back to the lake where she spent her childhood summers in order to prove that what she wrote happened the way she'd remembered. But the truth turns out to be far more complicated, showing that sometimes the story we think we're telling is another story altogether.

In this richly textured debut novel, a disgraced journalist moves into her great aunt's secret-laden farmhouse and discovers that the women in her family were testaments to true love and courage in the face of war, persecution, and racism.