Includes reader's guide.

"In a small country town during one long, hot summer, the Bloom family is beginning to unravel. Martha is straining against the confines of her life, lost in regret for what might have been, when an old flame shows up. In turn, her husband Mike becomes frustrated with his increasingly distant wife. Marital secrets, new and long-hidden, start to surface-with devastating effect. And while teenagers Tilly and Ben are about to step out into the world, nine-year-old Ada is holding onto a childhood that might soon be lost to her. When Ada discovers an abandoned well beneath a rusting windmill, she is drawn to its darkness and danger. And when she witnesses a shocking and confusing event, the well's foreboding looms large in her mind--a driving force, pushing the family to the brink of tragedy. For each family member, it's a summer of searching--in books and trees, at parties, in relationships new and old--for the answer to one of life's most difficult questions: how to grow up?"--Provided by publisher.