Ruth Campbell

Summer Silhouettes Ruth Campbell

Everyone who's ever seen Shawn Callahan, 12, play baseball is convinced that he'll become a professional pitcher when he grows up. It's his dream. But when Shawn loses his pitching arm to cancer, his hopes for the future are shattered. Because Shawn's health battle has been difficult on all of the Callahans, they rent a lakeside cabin for the entire summer in the hope that spending time away together will help their family get back to normal. While they're there, Shawn attends the local county fair and notices a young woman named Thora Hilliard cutting out silhouettes. In addition to making portraits, pale and silent Thora seems to have a supernatural ability to create silhouettes that depict memories, wishes, and predictions. As Shawn cautiously become friends with this mysterious stranger, he begins to suspect that Thora, too, may have suffered a tragic loss-about a hundred years earlier. If he's right about Thora's seemingly impossible past, Shawn might be the only one who can help her find true happiness again. But, first, he'll have to let go of the anger he's felt ever since his surgery and allow Thora to help him. If he can.