The Number 7
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
It all starts with a mysterious phone call from Louisa's decorative antique phone. And that wouldn't be so strange, except that the phone is unplugged, and has been for years. Frightened by the call and its message--and questioning her own sanity--Louisa listens as a somehow-familiar voice describes a lost family secret about Louisa's grandfather and his daring involvement in resisting the Nazi scourge in his native Sweden during World War II. Piecing together each clue she can find, Louisa begins to see how her grandfather's guilt and shame continues to haunt her own father, and the rest of her family, decades later, planting seeds of doubt that threaten to tear them all apart.
Now desperate to know the full truth, despite the charming distractions of a boy with secrets of his own, Louisa becomes consumed with her discoveries, which she passes off to her parents as a school history project. Digging through old family albums and letters, she at last begins to see that the phone call was only the beginning, and that she is the one meant to be the messenger who can bring the truth of the past to light--before it's too late for her family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Louisa and her family were shattered when her mother died of breast cancer; her father and older sister retreated into themselves to mask their pain. Now, Louisa's grandmother has died, and her father moves the family from North Carolina to his childhood home in Pennsylvania. Louisa, 16, never met her grandparents and knows nothing about them, but when an old rotary phone in the attic begins ringing, she hears her dead grandmother on the line, telling Louisa the secret history of her Swedish grandfather's actions in WWII. The calls continue, with the promise that the story ends with a murder the grandfather committed, an effective hook to keep readers turning pages. Debut author Lidh skillfully incorporates information about Swedish history into the gripping story of Louisa's ancestors. Louisa's experiences as the new girl at school while juggling two potential romantic interests covers well-trod ground, with neither boy feeling fully realized, but Louisa's grief is portrayed with honesty, as is her gradual reconnection with her father and sister. Ages 14 up.
