Seashell Season

Every year on March 26th, Verity Peterson visits Ogunquit Beach, where she puts a handwritten message into a bottle and ... (more)

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{u2019}s a ritual of remembrance for the daughter she hasn{u2019}t seen in sixteen years{u2014}not since her baby{u2019}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{u2026} Verity learns that Alan is now in jail on abduction charges{u2014}and Marni Armstrong, born Gemma Peterson-Burns, is coming to live with Verity in Yorktide, Maine. But this isn{u2019}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{u2019}s way. Over the course of one summer, Verity tries to reach a tough, wary young woman who{u2019}s more stranger than daughter. And Gemma must reexamine everything she thought about her parents{u2014}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. (less)