Five Oaks

In the Arkansas mountains, three generations of fiercely determined young women are poised for self-discovery in a decades-spanning novel about the bonds of family and secrets.

Spending summer away from home for the first time, fifteen-year-old Wren Pritchard and her younger sister, Sylvie, arrive at Five Oaks, their grandparents' Arkansas lake house. As it was for their grandmother and mother before them, it's a place for coming of age, first love, triumphs and failures, and keeping secrets.

This year, it's Wren's end-of-girlhood season. And Sylvie vows to keep all her secrets: Wren slipping away in the middle of the night, the boy on the dock, racing with him on the dark back roads, and slipping quietly into bed before dawn, carrying the scent of adventure. And still, as Wren's behavior begins changing and the moonlit escapes become more daring, Sylvie holds her tongue. Even when it feels like Wren is speeding toward disaster. Then one night, Wren doesn't come home.

The halcyon days in the Ouachita Mountains are not what they appear. When the truth comes to light--about mothers, daughters, and sisters--no one in the family will ever be the same.

Julie Hensley is an Appalachian writer, raised in the mountains of Virginia. She earned an MFA from Arizona State University and is the author of Viable, a collection of poetry, and Landfall: A Ring of Stories. Hensley's poems and stories have also appeared in dozens of journals, including the Southern Review, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Quarterly West. She is a core faculty member of the Bluegrass Writers Studio, the low-residency MFA program at Eastern Kentucky University. She lives in Kentucky with her family. For more information, visit www.juliehensleywriter.com.