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"Neely [is] a young woman with a passion for knowledge, justice, and her own independence."

Barbara Gopas Gubbins, School Library Director, Renbrook School, West Hartford CT


"This story would appeal to anyone young enough to have the whole world ready to be discovered. What better place to learn than in summer school, where teacher, Neely Allen, learns more about life than her students in the 1873 school run by creationist scientist, Louis Agassiz"

Lois Mathieu, Amazon review


"Compelling, a real winner. Under the Open Sky pitches the reader headfirst into a spellbinding tale of mystery, romance and science.”     Olivia Vehslage, 5th grade student, West Hartford, Connecticut


Under the Open Sky is the sixth book in the Matty Trescott series. It is 1873 and Matty’s cousin Neely Allen is a science teacher at Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts. Her life seems fairly settled until she gets news of a summer school that is about to be opened by the eminent scientist Louis Agassiz. Excited by the opportunity to work with some of the best scientific minds of the day, Neely eagerly pursues this opportunity. We follow Neely to Agassiz’s school on Penikese Island, off the coast of Cape Cod. There, among a group of famous scientists,  Neely finds romance, adventure, and mystery waiting for her.

An Excerpt from Under the Open Sky:

             After that I was wide awake. Paul suggested that I try to go back to sleep but with that bulky life jacket on and the sloshing of the water that had flooded below deck, I was sure that it would be a waste of time to try.  David brought me some coffee and we all sat on our hammocks, talking in the dark, trying to keep our minds off the storm.

         I must have been half asleep because I didn’t hear the first scraping sounds. Suddenly there was a loud crunching, and I was pitched off the hammock into the cold water.

         “Oh, no,” I cried. “We’re sinking!”
               

From the Author:

When we finished writing Ring Out Wild Bells, we knew that we needed a sequel to tell our readers what happened to Matty after medical school and Neely after her years at the Seminary. It wasn’t until we started writing the sequel that we realized that we needed two sequels: one about Matty (that became The Town on Rambling Creek) and one about Neely's life after college.
So this book tells us what became of Neely, whom we last met as she contemplated her future – with Stuart? with Paul? on her own? It also allowed us to bring back one of our favorite characters, Julia Mason, and to discover what had become of her too.