About this item
A picturesque Maine beach town is the setting for Holly Chamberlin's touching and thought-provoking new novel, as a mother struggles to reconnect with her long lost daughter...Every year on March 26th, Verity Peterson visits Ogunquit Beach, where she puts a handwritten message into a bottle and launches it into the waves. It's a ritual of remembrance for the daughter she hasn't seen in sixteen years - not since her baby's father, Alan, took two-month-old Gemma and disappeared. Verity keeps searching and hoping, sustained by the thought that someday she might get to be a mother to her own child. And finally, one phone call may change everything ... Verity learns that Alan is now in jail on abduction charges - and Marni Armstrong, born Gemma Peterson-Burns, is coming to live with Verity in Yorktide, Maine. But this isn't the joyful reunion Verity imagined. Gemma has been raised to believe Verity was an unfit mother who left Alan no choice but to take her out of harm's way. Over the course of one summer, Verity tries to reach a tough, wary young woman who's more stranger than daughter. And Gemma must reexamine everything she thought about her parents - and decide whether to trust in a relationship that, though delicate as a seashell on the surface, could prove to be just as beautiful and resilient. Praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin"Chamberlin's latest is a great summer read but with substance. It will find a wide audience in its exploration of sisterhood, family, and loss." - Library Journal on Summer With My Sisters"Nostalgia over real-life friendships lost and regained pulls readers into the story." - USA Today on Summer Friends
About the Author
I live in Portland, Maine, with my husband Stephen (architect, photographer, and food writer) and our amazingly fabulous cat Betty. When I'm not writing, I usually can be found with my head in a book. I try to read widely; still, I do play favorites with authors such as Peter Ackroyd and Patrick McGrath.I was born and grew up in the Bronx and later lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I earned an undergraduate and graduate degree in English Literature at New York University before going on to work for about twelve years as an editor in publishing and packaging at Ballantine Books, Daniel Weiss Associates, Inc., and Kensington Publishing Corporation. Mostly I developed, acquired and edited projects, usually fiction, in Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade categories.In 1996, I moved to Boston and began freelance editing, ghost writing, and reviewing manuscripts. I was a can-do wordsmith for hire, grinding out books on everything from the importance of shark liver oil in one's diet to feng shui for the amateur; I also worked on what seemed like a million Young Adult series installments. Eventually I decided I'd rather work on my own projects so I made a proposal to my old friend and colleague John Scognamiglio at Kensington. After a couple of false starts he signed me up to write "Living Single," which was published in 2002. Since then I've been writing one novel a year, and I've also contributed novellas to three collections John put together.In terms of life outside reading and writing, Stephen and I recently updated an 1865 brick townhouse in downtown Portland and we love living in this old seaside town. We entertain a good bit -- Stephen cooks, I set a nice table and clean up afterwards. We're happy to live in an area so full of people who support the arts. Portland itself is alive with theatre and music, and it's the home of several museums, including the impressive Portland Museum of Art, and good independent bookstores catering to serious readers.
