The Carousel Summer of Juniper Lane

About this book:

June Vance arrives at her uncle's Ohio barn expecting a summer of dust and drudgery, restoring a mothballed carousel to save the county fair from plastic replacements. She finds instead Martha Ross—calloused, competent, and already elbow-deep in eighty years of lead paint, grease, and the peculiar, exacting magic of bringing wooden horses back to life. Between the hiss of citrus stripper and the roar of a vintage heat gun, June discovers that restoration isn't about fixing what's broken; it's about reading the grain, trusting the carver's hand, and learning which seams will hold under pressure.

As the Fourth of July deadline looms and the Ohio heat turns the barn into a kiln, the work strips June down to something raw and honest. Every chapter peels back another layer: the cobalty depth of a hand-blown glass eye, the rhythm of sandpaper on basswood, the weight of a real horsehair tail. And beside her, Martha moves with the quiet certainty of someone who knows exactly how much heat the wood can take before it chars—and how to guide June's hand through the dangerous parts.

*The Carousel Summer of Juniper Lane* is a love letter to craft, to the stubborn beauty of things made to be touched, and to the women who refuse to let history rot in the dark. Lush, tactile, and pulsing with the slow-burn intensity of a Midwestern summer, it's a novel about the courage to strip away the old coats and trust what's underneath.