November

1776

By David McCullough

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a place of strange disappearances and old legends.  The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house, just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie.  Townspeople say that Sara's ghost walks the streets after midnight, and some still leave offerings on their doorsteps to prevent her from coming inside.  

Ruthie Washburne has never put much stock in West Hall's rumors.  Having grown up in an isolated farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn, she dreams of leaving her sleeping town and escaping her mother's odd insistence that they live off the grid without Internet or even a listed phone number.  But when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace, she begins to wonder if Alices's eccentricities have a deeper reason--especially when she finds a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of Alice's room

The diary tells the story of a mother who is willing to do the unthinkable in order to hold her daughter in her arms once again, no matter the consequences.  And as Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she will discover that she's not the only person desperate to unlock the secrets that the diary contains.  

But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.  *

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*From the book jacket