Mattie is growing up in hard times on the farm and is torn between her desire to go to college and her sense of responsibility to stay home and help the family, or even have one of her own. There is much more in the story than the murder mystery on the lake.

What do those letters contain? Should she be true to the woman’s instructions now or are there clues in the letters that might explain what happened? The instructions are to burn the letters, but Mattie never gets a chance until the body of the woman is recovered from the lake. She is given a package of letters by a young woman guest who is obviously distraught. The mystery of that night ended up being one of the most sensational murder trials in New York’s history.ĭonnelly’s fictional account features Mattie, a young girl working at the tourist hotel on the shores of Big Moose Lake. The boat she’d been in with her male companion was capsized so it appeared to be an accident, but the other body was never found. ‘A Northern Light’ is based on a true story from the Adirondack Mountains where a body of a young woman was pulled from the waters of Big Moose Lake in 1906. Publishers in UK always give books a different cover (which I love to compare with the US cover) and sometimes, as in this case, even a different title. Set in 1906 in the Adirondack Mountains, against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, this Printz Honor-winning coming-of-age novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original.Winner of the Carnegie Medal, in the UK this book is titled ‘A Gathering Light’.

But when Grace's drowned body is fished from Big Moose Lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. She takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. With the fresh pain of her mother's death lingering over her and the only out from her impoverished life being marriage to the handsome but dull local rich boy, Maddie flees from her home. Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has a word for everything, and big dreams of being a writer but little hope of seeing them come true. Jennifer Donnelly is the master of historical fiction!' -Ruta Sepetys, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Carnegie Medal

Now with a fresh new look and introduction, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing, Printz Honor-winning debut-the story of a young woman's coming-of-age and the murder that rocked turn-of-the-century America.

A northern light by jennifer donnelly