Here, in “Crow Lake,” is a family in an isolated farming community in northern Canada. Kate, the third of four children, is now an adult. Time flashes back to the day her parents were killed in a car accident. The children are Luke, 18, Matt the genius, 17, Kate 7, and Bo, the baby sister.

Luke decides that he will give up a scholarship in order to raise the girls, so that Matt can finish high school and go to college. Life is hard, the boys fight over Luke’s sacrifice, and the homey neighbors drop by with offers of jobs and casseroles to help out.

We hear their story as Kate, now a zoology professor, is planning a trip back home to celebrate Kate is a damaged soul and can’t communicate or share her feelings with her live-in boyfriend and doesn’t want him to attend the party, even though he’s invited.

Past and present converge at the party when we understand the secrets of the past and how Kate’s perceptions of her brothers’ sacrifices are incredibly flawed as she discovers that her supposed guilt is actually intellectual snobbery.

Author Mary Lawson’s characters are real people, with real complexities, and we can really empathize with them.

Merry Titus, who reviews books for the Reporter, is a King County Library System employee at Covington Library.