Evie is 15 going on 16. Her stepfather, Joe, came back from fighting in WWII and it seemed like family life got back to normal pretty quickly and Joe opened up a couple of appliance stores with a GI loan. Sure, they live with Joe’s mother, who doesn’t seem to like Evie’s mother Beverly much, but other than that things are going well. Until the phone rings one day. Joe says it’s someone looking for a Joe Spooner who isn’t him, but he’s acting weird and the next day he proposes an impromptu family trip to Palm Beach (from NY) even though it’s in the middle of the school year. So off they go to Palm Beach. And lo and behold – what a coincidence! – a guy from Joe’s old platoon shows up at the same hotel. They’re “friendly” but Evie can tell that Peter unsettles Joe. Meanwhile, Evie’s experiencing her first major crush, and Peter seems to like her too.

But things are getting more and more uncomfortable between Joe and Peter, and finally one night after an altercation between the two, Evie learns the truth about where Joe got his money and why Peter is in Palm Beach. The next day Joe, Peter and Bev go out on a fishing trip, and a hurricane makes landfall. When the boat returns to shore, Peter is dead and Evie’s parents are on trial for murder. What really happened on the boat? Was there anything going on between Peter and Bev? Can Evie trust that anything he told her is true? And how far will she go to save her family?

This book is basically a combination historical fiction/coming of age romance/mystery. The writing is terrific – the plot unfolds slowly, but not too slowly, and with just the right amount of suspense. A lot of books try to have their character grow up over the course of a series of events but it doesn’t always ring true to me – in this one, the growth does. I’m also a sucker for teen girl books from this time period, and Blundell captured just the right mood and used just the right language. She really did her homework.

Publisher: Scholastic

Pub date: November 1, 2008