The Summer of 1957: Secrets Left in the Basement

In the summer of 1957, eight-year-old Penelope Evans was sexually molested. Two months later, the man who molested her was found dead in his car from a gunshot wound to the head. It was ruled a suicide. Now, thirty-six years later, Elizabeth Scott-the granddaughter of the dead man and a police investigator-wonders why her beloved grandfather would commit suicide. Elizabeth is intent on finding out if it really was suicide or if he was actually murdered. Unaware of Penelope's experience in 1957, Elizabeth asks her former childhood friend to help get the case reopened. Penelope refuses, and after secretly reading her mother's diary, she is determined to keep Elizabeth from reopening the case. As these two women move forward on divergent paths, Elizabeth discovers unfathomable secrets her family has kept from her. Penelope is forced to confront her past as her current life unravels. Both women are faced with life-changing decisions that will affect their lives and the people they love most.

Judith Powell grew up in Dayton, Ohio. She attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio and later graduated from the University of Texas. She is the author of an anthropomorphic book, Not all Rudolphs are Red-Nosed Reindeers and an epistolary memoir, Rolling Through Europe in 1962. During her working career, she lived in Denver, Houston, and Midland, Texas. She now lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her dog, Theo.