No one wants Stella to run things, but no one wants to oppose her. Stella is a cartoon of a character: a mean, vindictive, deceitful bully who thoroughly dislikes Fiona. Fiona is contemplating her future when her next-door neighbor, Stella, declares her intention to run for chair of the local government. We return to Washington Island just as Fiona has completed her first year of residence on the island, which she sees as the fulfillment of a wager from the first book in the series. There are ghosts, but this is not a ghost story. It has a mystery, but is not a mystery story. The weather is challenging, the small town and rural population is interesting, and our author does a very fine job incorporation and exploiting all aspects of the setting into the story.

Washington Island is a terrific setting for a novel. There are things in this book that will make more sense if you have read the first one in the series, so it is best to read them in order. I liked this book much more than I liked North of the Tension Line which was the first book in the series. This book is the second in a series featuring Fiona Campbell and her life on an island in Lake Michigan off the coast of Door County Wisconsin.

The audacity of goats