{yarn along} The Longings of Wayward Girls

You've seen this pair of socks before, and I'm sure you'll see it again and again. But after finishing the lace shawl, I'm ready to go back to the ribbing -- or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

I've spent the past couple of days reading The Longings of Wayward Girlsby Karen Brown. I love the details. The author absolutely captures the feel of long days spent with a group of mothers and children.  The two stories -- one from Sadie's childhood and one from the present -- slowly unfold, gradually revealing secrets from Sadie's past and the effect that they still have on her. I'd recommend this one if you want to revisit lazy childhood summers, with a bit of tragedy  thrown in. The ending left some things unresolved, but I think maybe it was implied that those details would be dealt with later.

Here's the book's description --

It’s an idyllic New England summer, and Sadie is a precocious only child on the edge of adolescence. It seems like July and August will pass lazily by, just as they have every year before. But one day, Sadie and her best friend play a seemingly harmless prank on a neighborhood girl. Soon after, that same little girl disappears from a backyard barbecue—and she is never seen again.

Twenty years pass, and Sadie is still living in the same, quiet suburb. She’s married to a good man, has two beautiful children, and seems to have put her past behind her. But when a boy from her old neighborhood returns to town, the nightmares of that summer begin to resurface, and its unsolved mysteries finally become clear…

For more fun knitting projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis.