Kelly Young Chang
Kelly Young Chang is the author of THE SINS OF GOOD PEOPLE, forthcoming from akaStory at Abrams in 2027. She is a member of the Women of Words workshop group and a graduate of Emerson College with double degrees in Acting and Writing. In her writing, Kelly is drawn to stories about isolated and morally gray characters, the juxtaposition of humor and sadness, redemptive arcs amidst darkness, and characters who grapple with issues of faith and doubt. Kelly grew up just outside Poughkeepsie, New York, and she now lives in New York City with her husband and son.
The Sins of Good People
The lives of four unlikely secret-keepers converge when the body of Lily Ambrose washes up in the lake of a small town in upstate New York in 1953, resurfacing the haunting histories and complicated questions that almost drowned with her.
Eight-year-old Titania is a secret. She lives alone in the attic of the Ambrose sisters’ house, where she’s been kept ever since her mother Lily disappeared.
Nine-year-old Benjamin has a secret. He knows she’s there.
Henrietta Ambrose has a long-buried secret, and she keeps it locked away in the attic with Titania.
And town midwife Nelia Spudd has a secret too; her son was at the lake with Lily the night she disappeared.
Now, in the summer of 1953, these secrets become harder to keep. A deluge of rain floods Grenning Lake — surfacing the long-lost body of Lily Ambrose and the memories that nearly drowned with her.
Told from alternating points of view and dipping back and forth in time, the lives of these four secret-keepers converge as they grapple with the questions lapping in Lily’s wake. What if telling someone’s secret is as cruel as keeping it? How can you ever untangle the intricate relationships between mothers, daughters, and sisters?
But one question haunts them most: What really happened the night Lily Ambrose died?
Publication
NA: Abrams (akaStory)
Release date: Spring 2027
