Sugaring Off

A dazzling and evocative novel about seventeen-year-old Owl, left partially deaf by an early childhood tragedy that will come back to haunt her all these years later when her father is released from prison, and who is always her freest self while hiking the forested acres surrounding her family's New Hampshire maple sugar farm. Left partially deaf by an early childhood tragedy that ended in her father's incarceration, seventeen-year-old Owl is now a tracker, an explorer, a wildlife enthusiast, and always her freest self while hiking the steep forested acres surrounding her aunt and uncle's maple sugar farm, now her home. Owl and her aunt and uncle never speak of the brutal attack that brought her to them. On the day she confronts a stranger trespassing among the maples, Owl's sheltered existence is blown wide open by Cody - the magnetic, dangerous young man hired to help with the sugaring off. Cody seems to see her, the real her, in a way no one else does. Together, they challenge each other, learn to question their preconceptions, and risk a romance their families are desperate to stop. But when Owl learns that some part of Cody is compelled toward self-destruction, she must make a difficult decision about their relationship at the same time she's grappling with her father's recent release from prison. And when a seemingly motiveless local murder draws attention to Cody, Owl realizes that Cody is in far more serious trouble than anyone knows - and it's followed him to her mountain.