One afternoon in the autumn of 1972, a lonely widow in Mt. Gilead, Illinois, makes the impromptu decision to rent out a room in her house to a socially awkward man, a stranger who has come to town. It is risky--she doesn't know anything about him. But Edith Green can no longer bear a life lived alone. And Henry Dees, haunted by the past he carries with him from Tower Hill, Indiana, is plagued by a tremendous guilt about things he did and didn't do that led to the death of a little girl back home. How can he face the rest of his life?

The Evening Shades is as moving and suspenseful as its predecesser, Pulitzer finalist The Bright Forever.

But it is a story that stands alone: a story of love found in middle age and the joy it promises, but not without serious complications. There is the bereaved family of the little girl, who are holding their own secrets about the mysterious disappearances of both the man who killed their daughter and Henry Dees.

The Evening Shades is a poignant story of accommodation, resilience, forgiveness, and love in the face of all that threatens the splendor of our ordinary lives.