Summer at Forsaken Lake

The Yearling edition of Summerat Forsaken Lake is the perfect summer-trip accessory: With their father away for his job, citykids Nicholas and younger twin sisters Haley and Hetty are off to spend the summer with their great-uncle Nick. Soon, Nicholas is right at home in the country: he learns to sail, hears about his father's childhood on the same lake, and makes fast friends with local girl Charlie, who's got a wicked curve ball. Things takes a turn toward the mysterious when Nicholas finds an old, unfinished movie his father made years ago about the local legend of The Seaweed Strangler. Before long Nicholas wants answers about the legend, and about why the movie wasn't completed. Together, he and Charlie work to uncover the truth and discover some long-buried secrets along the way. In this warm and appealing middle-grade novel that's an homage to summers spent barefoot and outdoors, Michael D. Beil invokes one of his own favorites, Arthur Ransome's We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea.

MICHAEL D. BEIL teaches English at a Catholic high school in New York City. He is the author of three installments of his Edgar Award-nominated Red Blazer Girls mysteries, with a fourth in the works.