The Catherine Wheel — Jean Stafford

Katherine Congreve is still a rare beauty, and her fashionable summer home in the small Maine village of Hawthorne is an enchanting bastion of Boston-haunted elegance--the picturesque relic of a cherished bygone era. To all appearances Congreve House and its inhabitants are enduring and unchanging as Summer itself. Only, this summer is different. For against the backdrop of Katherine's private, shimmering world of a desperate secret begins to shred its dark, ominous shadow. Slowly and inexorably the shadow gathers substance. Katherine and her secret become the storm center of a drama that shatters the lives of all who touch her.