While enjoying a captivating new social life during the summer of 1929, 15-year-old Dorothy Brooks must contend with anti-Semitism and bootlegging, two evils poisoning her New England resort town.

 

 

You know that kid who always has whatever is new, better and best? The one who is kind of a bore but you’re friends anyway because you like playing with their toys? For me, that would be my neighbor, Alicia Hall.

But today I had something she wanted.

And I couldn’t wait to tell her about it.

I kicked my legs hard and propelled the wooden swing higher, staring at the back of her big old house, which sat smugly basking in the morning sun, freshly painted blue shutters gleaming. She should be out right about—

Yep. The back door creaked open and Alicia clattered across the porch in her new high heels with the ankle strap and button. The hem of her floral chiffon dress fluttered as she moved, exposing her plump dimpled knees.

My mother would definitely disapprove. Just yesterday she told me in one of her lectures, “Bobbed hair and short skirts are signs of civilization’s decline.”