"[A] domestic drama with the adrenalin-fueled beating heart of a
thriller."--Elle
*"Beautifully written and carefully observed . . . King is a wildly
talented writer." --Chicago Tribune
Fifteen years ago Vida Avery arrived alone and pregnant at elite Fayer
Academy. She has since become a fixture and one of the best English
teachers Fayer has ever had. Living on campus, on an island off the New
England coast, Vida has cocooned herself and her son, Peter, from the
outside world and from an inside secret. For years she has lived largely
through the books she teaches, but when she accepts the impulsive
marriage proposal of ardent widower Tom Belou, the prescribed life Vida
has constructed is swiftly dismantled.
Peter, however, welcomes the changes. Excited to move off campus, eager
to have siblings at last, Peter anticipates a regular life with a
"normal" family. But the Belou children are still grieving, and the
memory of their recently dead mother exerts a powerful hold on the
house. As Vida begins teaching her signature book, Tess of the
d'Urbervilles, a nineteenth-century tale of an ostracized woman and
social injustice, its themes begin to echo eerily in her own life and
Peter sees that the mother he perceived as indomitable is collapsing and
it is up to him to help.
