Rachel Simon - The Story of Beautiful Girl

A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK

Pennsylvania, 1968.

'Hide her.'

Two words that would change all of their lives - for ever.

On a stormy night in small-town America, a couple, desperate and soaked to the skin, knock on a stranger's door. When Martha, a retired schoolteacher, answers their knock, her world changes for ever.

Her visitors are Lynnie and Homan, who have fled The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded with their newborn baby. But the police are closing in and their freedom is about to be snatched away. Moments before she is taken back to the School, bound and tied, Lynnie utters two words to Martha: 'Hide her.' And so begins the heart-rending story of Lynnie, Homan, Martha and baby Julia - lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love.