Chapters (83)
- Epigraph
- Maps
- (prologue)
- Part 1: Signs and Vapors
- (one)
- (two)
- (three)
- (four)
- (five)
- (six)
- (seven)
- (eight)
- (nine)
- (ten)
- (eleven)
- (twelve)
- Part 2: Secret Things
- (thirteen)
- (fourteen)
- (fifteen)
- (sixteen)
- (seventeen)
- (eighteen)
- (nineteen)
- (twenty)
- (twenty-one)
- (twenty-two)
- (twenty-three)
- (twenty-four)
- (twenty-five)
- (twenty-six)
- (twenty-seven)
- (twenty-eight)
- (twenty-nine)
- (thirty)
- (thirty-one)
- (thirty-two)
- (thirty-three)
- (thirty-four)
- (thirty-five)
- (thirty-six)
- (thirty-seven)
- (thirty-eight)
- (thirty-nine)
- Part 3: Time and the Maiden
- (forty)
- (forty-one)
- (forty-two)
- (forty-three)
- (forty-four)
- (forty-five)
- (forty-six)
- (forty-seven)
- (forty-eight)
- (forty-nine)
- (fifty)
- (fifty-one)
- (fifty-two)
- (fifty-three)
- Part 4: The Bent Grove
- (fifty-four)
- (fifty-five)
- (fifty-six)
- (fifty-seven)
- (fifty-eight)
- (fifty-nine)
- (sixty)
- (sixty-one)
- (sixty-two)
- (sixty-three)
- (sixty-four)
- (sixty-five)
- (sixty-six)
- (sixty-seven)
- (sixty-eight)
- (sixty-nine)
- (seventy)
- Dedication
- (acknowledgments)
- (author’s note)
- BY PAULA MCLAIN
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
It’s a door we don’t want to open, a conversation we don’t want to have, and yet the facts remain: Every seventy-three seconds someone in America becomes the victim of a sexual assault. Every nine minutes one of those victims is a child. Eighty-two percent of victims under the age of eighteen are female. The effects of sexual violence can be long lasting and profound, triggering PTSD, thoughts of suicide, drug use and abuse, a sticky vortex of shame and powerlessness.
Sometimes I look up and down the street as I’m walking and wonder which of the girls and women walking the other way—masked and socially distant, now, in 2020—share my story. I believe that our sorrow connects us, yes, and that it can also be the source of our power as well as our empathy. Anna Hart’s pain has led her to her path, her destiny, and mine has led me precisely here. To these characters, real and imaginary, to the fern forest, dripping with fog, to the bluffs above the roaring Pacific, to the cabin in the deep dark woods, and into the very heart of this book, which is as personal as anything I’ve ever written.
Cricket exists, as does the krummholz grove with its tortured and twisted cypress trees. I’ve sat at the bar at Patterson’s, sipping whiskey just as Anna and Will do, and had coffee at the GoodLife. It’s there, on Lansing Street, across from the Masonic Hall, where the carving of Time and the Maiden stands stark and white on a plinth above the village just as it has for over a hundred years. You could meet me there and we could walk together toward the bluff, talking as the wind carries our voices further and further on.
BY PAULA MCLAIN
When the Stars Go Dark
Love and Ruin
Circling the Sun
The Paris Wife
A Ticket to Ride
Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses: A Memoir
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paula McLain is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Love and Ruin, Circling the Sun, The Paris Wife, and A Ticket to Ride; the memoir Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses; and two collections of poetry. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, O: The Oprah Magazine, Town & Country, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. She lives in Ohio with her family.
paulamclain.com
Facebook.com/paulamclainauthor
Instagram: @paula_mclain
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