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For Annie Barnes, going home to Middle River means dealing with truths long hidden. But it is a journey she knows she must take if she is to put to rest, once and for all, her misgivings about her mother's recent death.

To an outsider, Middle River is a picture-perfect New Hampshire town. But Annie grew up there, and she knows all its secrets -- just like her idol, Grace Metalious, author of the infamous novel Peyton Place, which laid a small town's sexual secrets bare for all the world to see. Grace's bold rebellion against 1950s conformity inspired Annie to get out of Middle River and make a life for herself.

Annie Barnes is now a bestselling author. Her success has given her a confidence she never had and the residents of Middle River something new to worry about. When they hear Annie is returning for a lengthy visit, everyone believes she's come home to write about them.

But passion and rage propels Annie on a different course altogether. Coming face-to-face with...

Publishers Weekly

With her mother deceased and her older sister suffering similar symptoms, successful 30-something novelist Annie Barnes turns detective-Erin Brokovich-style-when she reluctantly returns to her "stifling, stagnant, and cruel" New Hampshire hometown of Middle River in Delinsky's diverting latest (after The Summer I Dared). A company town dominated by Northbrook Paper Mill, owned by the powerful Meades, Middle River's real claim to fame, according to Annie and other townspeople, is that it was the model for the once notorious bestseller Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. Annie's neighbors are equally sure that she's returned to dig up their dirt, and, like Metalious, write about it. Though Annie is less concerned with gossip than possible mercury poisoning, Metalious speaks to her from beyond the grave, egging her on in her investigation. The plucky heroine also begins a flirty e-mail conversation with a Deep Throat who calls himself "TrueBlue" and hints at Northbrook Mill's dark doings. And against all odds, handsome Meade scion James seems to be an ally in her environmental crusade. Readers with an appetite for light fare will find all the right ingredients-romance, mystery, suspense, sisterly rivalry and a thoroughly happy ending. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.