COLONIAL MADNESS

Tori and her mom must live in the past in order to win a desperately needed inheritance.

Tori’s divorced mom has a designer dress shop, but it turns out that she isn’t a very good businesswoman: The family is broke. If Mom’s going to keep her store, she’ll have to find some money. Enter recently deceased Great-Aunt Muriel, who has left a fortune to whichever of her relatives can survive for a week living in her Colonial mansion. It sounds good until they learn that everyone has to live as though they were in Colonial times, lighting fires with flint and making their own candles. Plus, they have to survive daily elimination challenges, doing Colonial tasks such as making porridge from scratch—including grinding the corn—and archery contests. Tori’s certain that Mom won’t be able to cope, but it turns out that Mom has some experience living off the land. The difficulty is that at least one member of the competition appears to be sabotaging Tori and her mom’s efforts—but which one? Add a dash of forbidden romance to the mix, and Tori finds herself in all sorts of trouble. Whittemore brings her customary insight and humor to every page of this funny and sometimes-suspenseful romp.

The history goes down easy, with lots of laughs. (Fiction. 9-13)