Last in a Long Line of Rebels

When Lou and her best friend, Benzer, pray for an exciting summer, they get more than they bargained for—as "exciting" can be defined in many ways. Before Lou knows it, the county is planning to take her house, and, in order to save it, she's masterminding a late-night book heist to solve a century-old mystery about a cache of stolen Civil War gold. Who stole the gold? Why, her own notorious great-great-grandfather, of course. As Lou pieces together her family history, she discovers her ancestor may have also been a murderer and was certainly a slave owner. "Why do people even like history?" she wonders. Fortunately Lou's grandmother, Bertie, the town historian and gossip, has plenty of answers for that and shows Lou that the only shame is not looking at our shameful past. When Lou uncovers the Civil War-era diary written by her namesake matriarch, she begins to learn what it was like to live in a state divided over the war—and finds herself immersed in her colorful family's struggles and the story of their changing stance on the war.

As Lou comes of age in this formative summer, she discovers that there's a lot more she inherited from her family than their junk pile business, and that it's never too late to fight injustice.