Nora Targonski-O’Brien

Abandoned by her parents and left to deal with her aging and senile grandfather, Annika faces poverty, isolation, and sexual oppression. When Mark, a wealthy, married stranger on his way to a sailing competition visits her bleak lakeside town during the dead of winter, a quiet but intense entanglement develops. Opened and transformed as a result of the affair, Annika faces possibilities normally unavailable to a person of her class, but Mark gradually falls into a forlorn, cold solitude.

After the death of his father, Aden and his mother, Sarah, find themselves responsible for the sale of his family home – a place they thought they’d left behind. When Sarah’s friends arrive to help, the task seems almost manageable. However, as they clear out the house, they uncover secrets in Sarah’s past and the sinister nature of the cultivated community Aden was raised in…. And his father’s family.