Long Island, 1969. Hendrix, incense, light machines, free love. Sophia “Taffy" Kuhn, a foxy ninth-grader, needs a boyfriend. So does her cousin and best friend, Laura “Candy” Essex. Enter Evan Charles, an eighth-grader, the last year for boys at posh Mill Hill School. He thinks Taffy and Candy are out-of-sight, and anticipates carefree years filled with girls, cars, and parties. Then his father drowns in an inch of liquid. Now he has to wing it.

Next door, Countess Mona von Bismarck, a horse trainer’s daughter from Kentucky, is in a high-stakes legal battle with Evan’s refined mother, president of the planning board, over the development of Mona’s 60-acre estate, Oak Point. The village’s future is at stake. Exploring the semi-abandoned property is Evan’s dangerous pastime. When a night of romance there ends in gunfire, his luck takes an unexpected turn.

Paris, 1983. Mona, dying, wants to tell all, to Evan, a fledgling writer. From stable to salon, her many loves of both sexes, and decades-long friendship with Balenciaga. The Countess gives Evan a 75-carat black opal, which allegedly has psychic powers. She used it to become the most beautiful, best-dressed and richest woman in the world. Evan has a loftier goal. Later that year, when Taffy and Candy re-enter Evan’s life, Mona’s black opal proves its worth.

OAK POINT, a novel by Edward C. Young c. 2015

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