Drowning Ruth: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

Deftly written and emotionally powerful, Drowning Ruth is a stunning portrait of the ties that bind sisters together and the forces that tear them apart, of the dangers of keeping secrets and the explosive repercussions when they are exposed. Winter, 1919. Amanda Starkey flees Milwaukee and retreats to her family's farm on Nagawaukee Lake, seeking comfort with her younger sister, Mathilda, and three-year-old niece, Ruth. But on one terrible night almost a year later, Amanda loses nearly everything when her sister mysteriously disappears and is later found drowned beneath the ice. When Mathilda's husband comes home from the war, he finds that Amanda has taken charge of Ruth and the farm with a frightening intensity. Ruth, haunted by her own memory of that fateful night, grows up under the watchful eye of her prickly and possessive aunt and gradually becomes aware of the odd events of her childhood.