Ruth has a secret that will soon become known to everyone. Dora wonders whether one can ever leave where they come from, but suddenly luck is on her side. Alyce is expected to help her father on his fishing boat all summer and miss the audition for the dance school she dreams of. Hank and his brothers are stowaways on a ferry, safer on the run than in their own home, until one of them falls overboard. And four destinies become intertwined.
Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock’s debut novel The Smell of Other People’s Houses is set in Alaska in the 1970s and follows young people trying to break free, build new lives for themselves, and at the same time help others. And who sometimes, in the most unexpected ways, actually succeed.