Return to Gone-Away

The Blakes are coming home to Gone-Away Lake. Not to visit this time, but to stay. When Portia and Foster learn their parents have purchased Villa Caprice - a sagging Victorian nightmare perched on the edge of the swamp - they can barely contain their excitement. Fifty years of abandonment have left the house exactly as its former inhabitants last knew it: closets stuffed with hats, attics heavy with forgotten toys, and mysteries scattered through every room. Summer unfolds as a treasure hunt through time, with the children unearthing the secrets of a vanished community while their parents slowly bring the old girl back to life. Reunited with their eccentric neighbors, the Cheever siblings, Portia and Foster discover that some houses hold more than dust and cobwebs - they hold the key to something worth finding. Elizabeth Enright captures the particular magic of childhood summers: that breathless certainty that every attic door conceals wonder, that every dilapidated porch holds adventure just waiting to be claimed.