The Why of Things

As the summer begins, the Jacobs family arrive at their holiday home in Massachusetts, only to find that a truck has been driven into their water-filled quarry and a young man has drowned. It is a dreadful echo of another recent death: the suicide of Joan and Anders' eldest daughter.

When details emerge of the man's identity, fifteen-year-old Eve becomes obsessed with proving that his death wasn't an accident, while her little sister unwittingly adopts his orphaned dog. Joan is more interested in tracking down the drowned man's mother, while Anders, who cannot talk about his own daughter's death, doesn't want to get involved. As they simultaneously try to adjust to their own loss and absorb this apparent tragedy, each in their own way confronts life's normal hurdles - growing up, sustaining a marriage, facing the future.

Here are characters so vividly imagined and drawn with such emotional insight that they leap off the page. When the summer ends, you will not want to let them go.