Abstract:
At fifteen, Katie Maddox knows nothing of the reasons for the estrangement between her beautiful self-centered mother, Lacey, and Lacey’s rich, also widowed, sister Emma. In the summer of 1953, Katie is sent to spend the summer with Aunt Emma in her historic house on an oak-lined drive in Jackson, Mississippi. Katie’s cousin, the irreverent and nosy Gloria Jean, is invited to join Katie. Gloria Jean’s restless, inquisitive nature leads her to gradually uncover the chilling events surrounding the long-ago death of Aunt Emma’s only child, Mary Emma, at the age of three.