While helping her granny Collette evacuate to a makeshift shelter in
Brooklyn during Superstorm Sandy, Lily uncovers secrets of her
grandmother's past as a member of the French Resistance during WWII.
Queens, 2012.
Hurricane Sandy is flooding New York City, and Lily is at a nursing home
with her grandmother, Collette. Lily visits Collette often, as she is
beginning to lose her memories. When the National Guard shows up to
evacuate the building and take them to safety at the Park Slope armory
in Brooklyn, Lily's granny suddenly produces a red box she's hidden in a
closet for years. Once they get to safety, Lily opens the box, where she
finds an old, beautiful Montblanc pen. Granny tells Lily that the pen is
very important and that she has to take care of it, as well as some
letters written in French.
But Lily loses the pen in the course of helping other nursing home
residents, and as she searches the city trying to find it, she learns
more about her grandmother's past in France and begins to uncover the
significance of the pen with the help of her best friend, a quirky pen
expert, and a larger-than-life, off-Broadway understudy. Told in
alternating sections (2012 and 1944), this engaging book explores a deep
friendship during difficult times and the importance of family.