The Alaskan Laundry,

This accomplished first novel is set on The Rock, a.k.a., Archangel Island, Alaska, a “slab of rock” 50 miles long and 15 miles wide. After the death of her mother, 18year-old Tara Marconi leaves Philadelphia and her boyfriend in hopes of finding a new life in America’s northernmost outpost. And she does: Tara gets a job, while making a home she can call her own out of an old tugboat.