As a child Great-aunt Alice Rumphius resolved that when she grew up she would go to faraway places, live by the sea in her old age, and do something to make the world more beautiful--and she does all those things, the last being the most difficult of all.

"Old Misery comes by her name honestly. She has just two possessions that are worth anything to her: her cat, Rutterkin, and her apple tree. The apple tree would be something, if it weren't for the stealing. Her miserable days are spent hobbling up and down the hill, to shoo away the apple thieves. So when one day a lowly gentleman knocks at the door, asking for a meal in exchange for a wish, Old Misery is quick to accept. She wishes that whoever...

"17-year-old Gwen Castle is a working-class girl determined to escape her small island town, but when rich-kid Cass Somers, with whom she has a complicated romantic history, shows up, she's forced to reassess her feelings about her loving, complex family, her lifelong best friends, her wealthy employer, the place she lives, and the boy she can't admit she loves"--