Ephemeral Summer — Sheila Myers

When Emalee's parents die in a tragic murder/suicide she is sent to live with her aunt who spends her summers on an idyllic lake in Upstate New York. To cope with her loss, Emalee becomes emotionally detached from everyone around her. As she enters adulthood, Emalee struggles to maintain this facade while trying to navigate relationships with the men in her life: Peter, an artist and close friend who lacks the ambition to make his art known to anyone but himself; and Stuart - a quiet, intelligent philosopher with whom she falls in love one summer, only to get caught up in a bizarre love triangle with his cousin, Danielle. Rising passions, shameful secrets and desperate acts drive Emalee away from her summer home and the mysterious Stuart. Years later, as a graduate student tracking moose in the Canadian wilderness, Emalee finds herself embroiled in yet another forbidden affair and must decide whether to take another chance on love. Set among the pristine lakes of Upstate New York and the Canadian wilderness, the characters in Ephemeral Summer come to life in vivid landscapes impossible to forget."