Finished: Bittersweet (Beverly-Whittemore) A current day nice little page-turning book about the mystery and family secrets that a poor college girl finds out about her very rich room mate and her family when they go to the family lake house for the summer. A pretty good read, and definitely in my category of "treadmill" books. These are the books that I can take with me to the gym and read while I'm on the treadmill and they make the time fly by. :-) Mabel Dagmar is the less fortunate room mate of Ev Winslow, who usually just ignores Mabel, until one day Mabel enters their dorm room to find Ev distraught and Mabel comforts her. They become fast friends, or so Mabel thinks. Mabel, with family demons of her own, jumps at the chance to go to the Winslow family lake house compound for the summer when invited. All kinds of family intrigue occurs once Mabel, renamed May by Ev at the lake, meets Ev's parents Birch and Tilde...and then all her siblings. With sturdy locks on all the cabins, a wacko sister of patriarch Birch's, Aunt Indo declaring there is a huge family secret, and lots of shenanigans going on, Mabel tries to uncover the mystery. Meanwhile, Ev is in love with "the help", longtime handyman, John. Of course....this true love can never be because John ends up being Ev's half-brother, as Birch impregnated John's mother, also "the help" many years ago. Meanwhile, the only normal brother seems to be Galway, who is very attracted to Mabel and she to him, but it turns out he's married. Well...pretty much a marriage of convenience. He was helping someone get their green card and he really loves Mabel. Birch is very much the control freak and very intimidating. When Ev and John elope, Mabel breaks down and tells John that she figured out he's Ev's half-brother. He goes off in a storm, and the next thing you know, John's invalid mother is dead and so is John. :-( The mother is strangled and John has flown off the cliff. Everyone assumes that John killed his mother in a rage and then jumped. However, Ev's younger sister Lu is traumatized and saw it all! Her own father strangled John's mother and then pushed John (his own son!!!) off the cliff to keep the secret from coming out. Clearly Birch will do anything to have his way. Meanwhile, the rantings of Aunt Indo are coming true as an old diary of Birch's mother shows that their family avoided becoming destitute in the early 1900's by dabbling in major stolen goods, artwork, etc. for years and years, even dealing with the Nazis. Eventually Tilde stands up to Birch when she realizes that he is threatening her own girl, Lu. She tells Mabel she knows just as many powerful people in all kinds of places that Birch does. Before you know it, Birch is dead of a "heart attack"! Hmmmmmmmm. Mabel ends up marrying Galway now that the abusive Birch is no longer a part of or threat to the family. And, together with Tilde, they profess their horror at the family's illegal dealings in the past and set up a foundation to see that all the stolen art is returned to the rightful heirs.Of course there are a lot more details, but that's about the gist of it. A pretty good summer read. :-)