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The Cottage at Glass Beach    by Heather Barbieri Amazon.com order for
Cottage at Glass Beach
by Heather Barbieri
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HarperCollins, 2013 (2012)
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* * *   Reviewed by Barbara Lingens

Heather Barbieri's third novel delves again very satisfactorily into relationships, but this time around it is her writing style that enchants. It seems as though the sea, her Irish heritage and the legends that have come down through the years have inspired her to write this quite beautiful story.

Nora, whose marriage to a high-powered attorney has been shattered by his infidelity, brings her two daughters to the family home on an island in Maine. Here she renews her acquaintance with an aunt and begins to find out more about her parents, while she tries to decide who she really is and how to handle her children, who miss their father. A shipwrecked man and a very dangerous adventure undertaken by her daughters help Nora to finally act decisively.

The descriptive passages of the land, the sea and the family's heritage and secrets are all pretty magical. Old superstitions play into the various characters' lives, help pull the story along and allow for loose ends to remain loose. In this work there are more questions than answers, but somehow that is part of the atmosphere of ocean winds, changing tides and mysteriously calling seals.

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