Dawn

Dawn is a compelling story of sinister secrets, shattered illusions, tender dreams... and a young girl's desperate yearning for the sheltering warmth of a true home and a happy family.

Dawn Longchamp wants more than anything to believe that, at last, she's safe and secure. Her daddy Ormand has a good job as janitor at a fancy private school in Virginia, so that Dawn and her older brother Jimmy have a chance for a free, fine education and a decent life. Her weak, sickly mother can grow strong again ... and Dawn's secret, precious hope to study singing is answered.

Soon Philip Cutler, the handsomest boy in the school, is paying Dawn lots of attention. The mere touch of his hand awakens in her strange, mysterious desires. Dawn is deeply devoted to her intense, brooding brother... but with Philip she imagines a beautiful dream of romance.

Then Dawn's mother suddenly dies, and her entire world begins to crumble. After a terrible shock, Dawn is thrust into a new family and an evil web of unspoken sins. Her sweet innocence is lost at the hands of the one she trusts the most. Humiliated and scorned by the iron-backed matriarch of this wealthy clan, Dawn is close to despair until a careless word from a family servant offers her one last shred of hope. Now, somehow, she must find her proud, reckless Jimmy again, and strip away the crushing deceptions, the wicked layers of lies going back three generations, that threaten to change all their lives for ever. --front flap