Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman

Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman is a story about making the choice between motherhood and a life as an artist, the painful coping of loss, and the mysterious deaths of two women, one in 1947, and one over 50 years later.  How are the deaths connected?  What clues can be found in Lily's journal, which Meg, the main character, finds hidden behind the tiles of her fireplace?  


Meg travels to Arcadia Falls in upstate New York to begin a new life as a teacher in folklore at an artist's school founded in the 1920's by Vera and Lily, two lovers who turned a summer artist's colony into a thriving school for the arts.  Lily's mysterious death at the bottom of a cliff in the winter of 1947 is intertwined with Meg's arrival at school, and the tragic death of a student who is found dead at the same spot as Lily was all those years ago.


Meg's fascination with Vera and Lily, and their fairy tale, The Changeling, soon finds her delving deeper in the mysteries that swirl around the school campus.  Who is who, and what is the real truth behind Vera, Lily, and Ivy, the Dean at the school who first arrived in 1946 as a 16 year old orphan.  


Set in a wooded, secluded area, this novel is lush with descriptions of fairy tales, magical woods, and women in white who flit through the trees.  Is it all imagination, or is something other worldly happening?  I really like Carol Goodman's writing, and this is a perfect fall or winter's night read.  

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Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman