THE SECRET OF SARAMOUNT

Sarah Mountain saw something nasty in the Saramount summerhouse when she was six (the night her favorite cousin Colin disappeared) and had such nightmares that Grandpa had to send her away from the Georgia Sea Islands to boarding school so the family could get some sleep. Or was it to protect her from whatever nasties were festering in her subconscious? Now she is 18, it is the Nineties, Coin has reappeared, and she's gonna be fallin' for Colin--if Colin is really Colin, and not an impostor as most of the family thinks. But what does the family know anyway? They're a morally unreliable crowd at best, what with cousin Victor and cousin Madeline's scandalous affair, Aunt Lucy's ravings, Uncle Charles' odd attitude toward his stepdaughter Rose, and Rose's Parisian sophistication and lavender-tinted traveling companion Yves. (""I must be surrounded by pretty things, pretty people, or I will die!"") Tennessee Williams content, Gibson Girl clothes, and the stylistic mastery of a candy wrapper.