Flappers & Fiction

Poor Sabr’ Ellen has nothing to wear to singing school but a faded brown merino and a shoestring in her hair. When she is entrusted with ferrying Suly Ketchum’s wedding bonnet back to the lighthouse, the temptation of its pink satin ribbons proves too sweet to resist. But a moment of borrowed vanity leads to a catastrophe on the dark water. Drifting oarless toward the open sea with a storm brewing, Sabr’ Ellen finds herself alone with the crashing waves and a wedding treasure she has already ruined.

Late one night in Cherryfield, Tootsy Dowden and her brother Tom slip into the dark barn to rifle through a tin-peddler’s rag bags. Among the scraps, Tootsy finds a square of embroidered satin, which she promptly sews into an apron for her beloved doll Jane Jupiter. Too late, the children learn it was the last surviving piece of great-grandmother Almore’s wedding dress. Will anyone miss it? Grandma Sherlock, as it turns out, has thought of little else.