Excerpt from The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Leni noticed how he was shaking. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, so she could see the burn scars that ran from his wrist to his elbow in ridges of puckered, disfigured skin that never tanned. Leni didn't know what had caused his scars—he never said and she never asked—but his captors had done it. She had figured out that much. The scars covered his back, too, pulled the skin into swirls and puckers.

"They made me watch him die," he said.

Leni looked worriedly at Mama. Dad had never said this before. To hear the words now unsettled them.

He tapped his foot on the floor, played a beat on the table with fast-moving fingers. He unfolded the letter, smoothed it out, and turned it so they could read the words.

Sergeant Allbright—

You are a hard man to find. I am Earl Harlan.

My son, Bo, wrote many letters home about his friendship with you. I thank you for that.

In his last letter, he told me that if anything happened to him in that piece of shit place, he wanted you to have his land up here in Alaska.

It isn't much. Forty acres with a cabin that needs fixing. But a hardworking man can live off the land up here, away from the crazies and the hippies and the mess in the Lower Forty-eight.

I don't have no phone, but you can write me c/o the Homer Post Office. I'll get the letter sooner or later.

The land is at the end of the road, past the silver gate with a cow skull and just before the burnt tree, at mile marker 13.

Thanks again,

Earl

Mama looked up. She cocked her head, gave a little birdlike tilt as she studied Dad. "This man … Bo, has given us a house? A house?"

"Think of it," Dad said, lifted out of his seat by enthusiasm. "A house that's ours. That we own. In a place where we can be self-sufficient, grow our vegetables, hunt our meat, and be free. We've dreamed of it for years, Cora. Living a simpler life away from all the bullshit down here. We could be free. Think of it."

"Wait," Leni said. Even for Dad, this was big. "Alaska? You want to move again? We just moved here."

Mama frowned. "But … there's nothing up there, is there? Just bears and Eskimos."

He pulled Mama to her feet with an eagerness that made her stumble, fall into him. Leni saw the desperate edge of his enthusiasm. "I need this, Cora. I need a place where I can breathe again. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. Up there, the flashbacks and shit will stop. I know it. We need this. We can go back to the way things were before 'Nam screwed me up."

Mama lifted her face to Dad's, her pallor a sharp contrast to his dark hair and tanned skin.

"Come on, baby," Dad said. "Imagine it…"

Leni saw Mama softening, reshaping her needs to match his, imagining this new personality: Alaskan. Maybe she thought it was like EST or yoga or Buddhism. The answer. Where or when or what didn't matter to Mama. All she cared about was him. "Our own house," she said. "But … money … you could apply for that military disability—"

"Not that discussion again," he said with a sigh. "I'm not doing that. A change is all I need. And I'll be more careful with money from now on, Cora. I swear. I still have a little of the bread I inherited from the old man. And I'll cut back on drinking. I'll go to that veterans' support-group thing you want me to."

Leni had seen all of this before. Ultimately, it didn't matter what she or Mama wanted.

Dad wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And Mama needed him to be happy.

So they would try again in a new place, hoping geography would be the answer. They would go to Alaska in search of this new dream. Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was.

Excerpted from The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. Copyright © 2018 by Kristin Hannah. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.