Thoughts from Readers:

From the moment Tony drove into town to Isaac walking through Lambertville at the end--everything fit together. I feel like I know these people.
T. B.

When I picked it up, I thought I was going to read it quickly. You packed so much into the novel. I slowed down and got to know the characters.
M.D.

Thank you for bringing some of the characters from the other books into this story. I reread the second book again after I finished this one.
A. S. 

Tony returns home to Lambertville after a twenty year absence. The novel picks up threads in Return to Lilac Hill and unravels a few more.

Preview: Lambertville through the eyes
of Angela Briton--Eve's daughter

13

Halfway through the spring midterm break, Angela Briton abruptly stopped walking and stared at the empty storefront that had been a bookstore, a dress shop and finally a dentist office during her childhood. She knew the bookstore had moved to a larger space one street away, the demise of the dress shop was a mystery, and the dentist was now in a practice with an orthodontist, an oral surgeon and another dentist in the squat professional building near the church. The pastor had hinted that the parish needed a new medical center the last time she stopped to speak to him after services. The Lamberts had arranged for her partial scholarship without any agreement that she return to Lambertville to practice, but the pressure set up a medical practice in her hometown was strong.

She’d grown up on the next mountain facing Lilac Hill in the little house her mother rented from the Stones. Walt Stone’s parents had lived in it all their lives and the short ride into town by bike had been her introduction to the world from the time she was six. When she’d first started to drive a car, she’d felt disoriented because it was so fast and not as agile a conveyance. She never drove in Baltimore because her classes were no more than a twenty-minute walk from her dorm room, and the job at the hospital had been easier to reach by bus. A car was an expensive impediment when you had to pay for parking.

Angela glanced at the number for the store owner and memorized it automatically. She flicked back her hair and caught the reflection of Lilac Hill in the glass storefront. The practice, if she managed to pass all her exams and live through her intern experience, would be small to start. Robby Elliott had returned to Lambertville four years ago, but his doctor’s shingle hung in Wheeling where his parents had moved. Angela wondered if he was happy in the big practice run by an HMO. She turned to look toward Lilac Hill as if she stared out the front window of the little store and watched smoke rise from the chimneys of the Lambert Mansion.

A car slowed down and stopped right in front of her. Before she could move on, the window rolled down and a familiar-looking man leaned over and asked, “Miss? I’m looking for the Lambertville Diner. Any chance you know the way?”

She smiled at the stranger and gave him directions. A nice looking man, she noticed and thought about her mother waiting tables that day. Angela glanced at the man’s ring-less hands on the wheel and added, “Tell them Angela said to give you dessert on me.” She grinned though the man had gone from friendly to watchful in seconds. She wondered if the fading bruises were more prominent in the bright daylight. His eyes flicked over her face, and she withdrew automatically.

Prepared to walk the few miles home, Angela watched the taillights of the stranger’s car and instinctively, she turned and walked in the same direction. She’d sneak in the back door, have a conversation with Claire or Molly and see what the stranger would think of her mother. As she skirted the front of the diner, she could see the man she’d spoken to sitting with Tony Reynard. Molly was beside their table glaring at both of them. Angela shook her head. Molly might be like an older sister, but she’d turned into a spiteful thing since Tony Reynard had returned. She was probably trying to throw him out again despite the older man with him in the booth.

Angela watched Molly say something cryptic and escape to the kitchen. Eve must have been in the back plating her orders. With the building of the huge restaurant out on the far slope of Lilac Hill, Eve and Tony had been meeting daily. Perhaps this man was one of the architects or a vendor.

Looking across the street, Angela watched Molly’s daughter Rosie dump her favorite stray cat at the base of the tree in the mechanic’s yard and move in a straight line toward the diner. Despite a delivery truck trundling down the narrow street at a good speed, Rosie looked up at Angela, smiled and stepped right into its path.