Introduction

The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped.

In the waning days of World War II, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.

In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.

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Discussion Questions

1) The theme of loss and grief weighs heavy in this book. If you are comfortable doing so, can you share an experience you’ve had with loss and grief? What helped and what did not?

2) How are stories passed down in your family? Is there a special book, similar to the journal the Dare descendants pass down? Or perhaps your family passes memories down through the art of storytelling?

3) What do you think is the truth of the Dare stone found in 1937? Is it an historical artifact of the Lost Colony or artifice?

4) Which character’s story engaged you the most and left you wishing for more?

5) “A story doesn’t matter because it’s true but because it’s been told.” What do you make of Claire’s words to Alice?

6) There is great symbolism in this book: Penn’s quest to restore the Belle Isle chapel bell; Penn slowly removing the loose bricks from Evertell house’s chimney; homecomings at Evertell. What drove Penn to do these things? What was she hoping to gain?

7) Discuss Penn and Doris’s relationship and how it develops throughout the book. What is each able to provide the other?

8) The question, “Who are you?” runs throughout the book. Have you ever grappled with that question? At what times in your life?

9) Bill Hawkes said to Penn that history depends on “who’s telling the story.” What does Bill mean by this? How might this story change if it was narrated by Sonder, Doris, or Bridie Quillian? What other character’s perspective might you appreciate?

10) How does the specter of World War II play a role in this book and for many of the characters’ stories? Consider Sonder, Walter Kreischer, Alice and Penn, Imegine, Bill Hawkes, Sammy Hunt, among others.

11) What did you think of Eleanor White Dare’s story, interspersed in chapters throughout the book?

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