Upstate: A Novel - A Sapphic Love Story of Grief, Healing, and Hidden Letters in Upstate New York

A grieving writer. An abandoned bookshop. A secret love story hidden in letters. From New York Times bestselling author Kim van Alkemade comes an unforgettable novel about found family, healing, and the power of the past to reshape the present. Thirty-four-year-old writer Audrey Beacon is grieving alone during lockdown when a post about a bookshop for sale in upstate New York pops into her social media feed like a lifeline.Enthralled by the historic house and the massive barn bursting with books, Audrey impulsively makes an offer.Soon, she’s cashing out her savings, loading her possessions into her dead husband’s van, and fleeing Manhattan for the village of Schuywich, determined to outrun the ghosts of her past. In 1956, it’s love at first sight when Schuywich librarian Hazel McIntyre meets dashing magazine writer Evelyn Cabot at a summer camp in Maine that discreetly promises a “different vacation for professional women.” By summer’s end, Evelyn has left Greenwich Village to move int