A bold new novel from the bestselling author that pays homage to Grace Metalious, pioneering New England author of 'Peyton Place'.
In her most controversial and unusual novel so far, at once a love story and an exploration of small town mores, Barbara Delinsky's new book has at its center a famous and award-winning non-fiction writer.
Annie Barnes, returns to the small New Hampshire mill town of her childhood on her mother's death, and begins to investigate the dangerous pollution caused by the local paper mill, which, she suspects, may have been the cause of her mother's illness. In doing so, she finds herself butting head-on the power of the wealthy family that owns the mill, the interests of many of the town's inhabitants in hushing the matter up, and the hostility of her two sisters, as well as confronting the sensibilities of those who have never forgiven or forgotten that the town was the model for Grace Metalious's 'Peyton Place' - and that nothing has changed much since then.
In 1956, Grace Metalious's 'Peyton Place' took on the hypocrisy of small-towns and narrow minds. It's premise, in Grace's words, was that though "these towns look as peaceful as a postcard picture, beneath that picture it's like turning over a rock with your foot - all kinds of strange things crawl out."
