A picturesque Maine beach town is the setting for Holly Chamberlin's
touching and thought-provoking 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.
