The Innocents — Lili Peloquin

NOTHING ever cam e between sisters Alice and Charlie.

But then their lives were ripped apart when their parents divorced and their mother married again so quickly they didn't even get refills on champagne. Richard Flood (the third) has major skeletons in his closet: a wife and a daughter -- now dead -- both from a previous life that still haunts him. Reserved, slightly older Alice and feisty, younger Charlie don't trust their stepfather, and they dread moving to his summer estate in the old-money coastal town of Serenity Point, Connecticut -- a place they refuse to like and where they know they'll never belong.

FRIENDS didn't.

The sisters promise to stand by each other for the rest of the summer. Come Labor Day, they'll be shipped off to boarding school. But their arrival at Serenity Point disrupts the power dynamics of the carefully constructed summer social scene.

BOYS couldn 't.

For Tommy and Jude, the sisters reopen old wounds and reignite a vicious rivalry. For Cybill, they're a reminder that some memories never stay buried. There are friends the girls aren't sure they can trust -- and boys they know they shouldn't.

THEIR FAMILY falling apart never would.

Before Alice and Charlie can begin to understand the rules that come along with money, the depth of their strange family history, and just how closely they're connected to their dead stepsister Camilla, they're sucked into this strange and seductive life. A life that threatens to tear them apart the harder they fight to stick together. A life they can't help but hate, and can't help but love.

UNTIL they got to Serenity Point.