Rebecca Kightlinger, Novelist
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​Rebecca Kightlinger

The Lost Girls by Heather Young

11/6/2016

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The Lost Girls
Heather Young, 2016, Harper Collins, pb, 339 pp, $26.95, 9780062456601
 
As I said, I am the last. Since Lilith’s passing three years ago,
the story of that summer has been mine alone to keep or to share.
 



Lucy Evans, dying alone in an isolated lake house, has shouldered a burden for sixty-four years: a secret she now wishes to divulge to her great-niece, Justine, her sole beneficiary, in a letter to be read after her death.  
       But when Justine takes possession of her great-aunt’s house, she is fleeing a suffocating relationship and trying to settle her daughters in a new school while coping with the return of her vagabond mother. So it is not until later, after Justine’s daughter has fallen under the spell of the lake house—and of six-year-old Emily, who long ago went missing—that Justine discovers Lucy’s letter. In it, Lucy resurrects the summer of 1935, a season of shifting allegiances for the Evans family.
       As eleven-year-old Lucy unpacks her trunks, she imagines the camaraderie she’ll share with her older sister. But thirteen-year-old Lilith, growing up and suddenly coquettish, shuns Lucy in favor of friends her own age.
      With Lilith spending more time away from the family, Lucy garners the attention her brooding father had reserved for his eldest. And as Lucy becomes her father’s favorite, her mother tightens her already constant vigilance over six-year-old Emily.
       But even Mrs. Evans has to blink.
     Lucy speaks her truths with candor, rolling out the secrets and unspeakable pacts that would anchor the Evans family to the lake house and taint four generations of Evans women. Into Lucy’s intimate recitation author Heather Young weaves the story of Justine’s nomadic life, incrementally turning up the tension that transforms a beautifully crafted work of historical fiction into a brilliant psychological thriller that rivals Shirley Jackson’s finest work. Highly recommended.
                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                       Rebecca Kightlinger

Originally published in Historical Novels Review,  Issue 78, November, 2016.
Citation: Kightlinger, Rebecca. "The Lost Girls" Historical Novels Review (Nov 2016). 
https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-lost-girls/

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    Author

    Rebecca Kightlinger
    Member of the National Book Critics Circle

    Categories

    All
    Across The China Sea
    A Deadly Affection
    Adlington: Lucy
    A Fortune Foretold
    A Googly In The Compound
    Alexander: V.S.
    A Million Drops
    Ashes To Ashes: The Chronicles Of Hugh De Singleton
    Bagirov: Togrul
    Beanland: Rachel
    Before We Visit The Goddess
    Bell: Anthea
    Captain Swing And The Blacksmith
    Cash: Wiley
    Charcoal Joe: An Easy Rawlins Mystery
    Cramer: Marina Antropow
    Death Of An Alchemist
    Defectors
    Del Árbol: Víctor
    Desai: Boman
    Divakaruni: Chitra Banerjee
    Florence Adler Swims Forever
    Godpretty In The Tobacco Field
    Great Game
    Heivoll: Gaute
    Ice Cold
    In The Lion's Den
    Joinson: Suzanne
    Kanen: Joseph
    Lawrence: Mary
    Lightningstruck
    Mace Havird: Ashely
    Make A Wish But Not For Money
    Morrell: David
    Mosley: Walter
    Nunnally: Tiina
    Olav Audunsson: Providence
    Overholt: Cuyler
    Parvin: Beatrice
    Pliejel: Agneta
    Richardson: Kim Michele
    Roads
    Ruler Of The Night
    Russell: Craig
    Schenkel: Andrea Maria
    Starr: Mel
    Strempek Shea: Suzanne
    Taylor Bradford: Barbara
    The
    The Book Woman Of Troublesome Creek
    The Devil Aspect
    The Dressmakers Of Auschwitz
    The Girl They Left Behind
    The Last Ballad
    The Lost Girls
    The Photographer's Wife
    The Postmistress Of Paris
    The Sisters Of Glass Ferry
    The Taster
    Translator
    Velatzos: Roxanne
    Young: Heather



"Knowledge wedded to wisdom is power."
                ~ Murga, Seer of Bury Down

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