Deceiving Elvera — Peg Herring

From the author of mysteries such as KILLING SILENCE and HER HIGHNESS' FIRST MURDER comes a compelling women's fiction story of friendship, love, loss, and the life-changing power of helping others. This powerful novel, which spans the decades from the 1960s to the present, plays out in two primary locations, Thailand and Michigan's Mackinac Island.On a cruise ship in the Gulf of Thailand, passenger Elvera Tharp has a reputation for being difficult—almost impossible—to deal with. New employee Michael volunteers to be full-time steward to the ornery Miss E, and he's determined to succeed where others have failed.As the ship visits ports around the gulf, Michael learns that in the 1960s, Elvera Tharp spent her summers on Mackinac Island, where she met and became friends with a local girl named Cathy Charbonneau.Elvera is from Chicago, where her parents work desperately to appear wealthier than they are. Cathy, who knows only the hardscrabble life of northern Michigan, is impressed by the Tharps' lifestyle and unaware that it isn't all it seems. As the girls meet over four summers, the feel of the late '60s comes through in the clothes, the music, the fads, and the attitudes of people they interact with.After high school, Cathy and Elvera move in separate directions. Cathy marries; Elvera goes to college. They no longer have much in common, and their friendship fades to Christmas cards with, "Maybe we'll get together next summer" messages.When Cathy experiences tragic losses, Elvera steps back into her life, moving her to Chicago and giving her a job at her fledgling fashion house. They are closer than ever until an ugly incident separates them again. Cathy heads to Thailand, where refugees created by the Vietnam War and its aftermath crowd the Thai border, homeless and desperate to escape the chaos in their homelands. Faced with their suffering, Cathy can't turn away. She becomes involved in what's called people-smuggling, which makes her feel that she's making a positive contribution to the world and not just existing. Some time later, facing an impossible situation, Elvera joins Cathy in Thailand. Her arrival mends their broken friendship, but in the end it leads to terror and a desperate fight for survival on a rainy hillside.The more steward Michael learns of Miss E's past, the more he suspects that she harbors a host of secrets, even in her seventh decade and despite functional limitations and constant pain. Getting to know Miss E brings Michael to a reckoning with his own past, which brings them both to a suspenseful situation and a shocking conclusion.DECEIVING ELVERA is the poignant, heart-warming and heart-breaking story of friendship, demonstrating how two women support each other through the hard times life hands all of us.