Light from a Distant Star

The novel Light from a Distant Star by author Lily Brooks-Dalton tells the story of a young girl coming of age in the early summer months. Nellie Peck is on the cusp of adolescence-- gangly, awkward and full of questions, but also observant and wise beyond her years. She admires her father: a man of great integrity.

 His family's century-old hardware store is failing, and Nellie's mother has had to go back to work. Nellie's older half sister has launched a disturbing search for her birth father; often saddled with her timid younger brother Henry through the long hot days, Nellie is determined to toughen him up as well as herself.

Three strangers enter Nellie's protected life. Brooding Max Devaney is an ex-con who works in her surly grandfather's junkyard. Reckless Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City to live with his elderly grandparents. And pretty Dolly Bedelia is a young stripper who rents the family's small back apartment and becomes the titillating focus of Nellie's eavesdropping.

 When violence erupts in the lovely Peck house, the prime suspect seems obvious. Nellie knows who the real murderer is, but is soon silenced by fear and the threat of scandal. The truth, as she sees it, is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone's eyes riveted on her in a courtroom setting, Nellie finds herself seized with doubt. No one will listen. No one believes her--and a man's life hangs in the balance due to her silence. Light from a Distant Star stands as an incredibly moving novel by one of America's finest writers, whose evocation of innocence lost will stay with you long after reading.