The Lost Girls by Heather Young

Justine loves Patrick, at least she thinks she does.  He calls her every day, at least several times a day.

He makes her feel like she is needed, and he plans fun outings for her girls. But there is something smothering about Patrick as well. Justine gets a phone call from a lawyer who is managing her aunt's estate in Minnesota, and Justine finds out that she is the sole heir of her aunt's estate.  

She met her Aunt Lucy when she was a small child, but she remembers the house and the lake where her aunt lived.  She has happy memories of the place, and that is enough incentive to uproot her girls and make the move to Minnesota.  She leaves Patrick a note telling him that his dinner is thawing in the fridge, and takes off from San Diego to travel to the Midwest.  

She remembers parts of the visit from her childhood, and one of the things she remembers is that her aunt and her aunt's sister (her grandmother) had a sister, Emily, who disappeared on the last day of summer many, many years before.  Emily vanished into the woods, and she was never seen or heard from again.  The family never left their summer home in case Emily returned.  

Justine enters a house full of secrets and finds that there is much she doesn't know about her aunt, her grandmother, her mother, and the neighbors. She has a limited income, and has no idea how to live in such a frigid environment.  Her children are trying to settle into a new school, and Justine is just trying to survive.  

Family secrets, love, forgiveness, and the complexities of different personalities are interwoven throughout the book.  What are the secrets that the house holds?  What does Lucy know that she shared in her journal? 

 I loved this book.  It was difficult to put down.  I will definitely read more from this author.