The Cottage at Glass Beach

March 5, 2012
In the enchanting world of Maine’s Burke’s Island, fanciful stories—of captured selkies becoming dutiful wives and tears cried in the sea beckoning lovers to shore—are gracefully woven into modern reality. Nora Cunningham, 40, was born on the island, but after her mother disappeared when she was five, Nora was whisked away to Boston by her father. Decades later, after Nora’s husband’s scandalous affair, her Aunt Maire invites Nora and her young daughters, Annie and Ella, back to the cottage on Glass Beach to find solace. Welcoming the slow pace of the island, Nora must learn to navigate her new place in life and rediscover the magic of the present while filling in the pieces of her past. At times plodding and mundane, Barbieri’s newest (after The Lace Makers of Glenmara) is saved by the precociously wise Annie, the tenacious and endearing Aunt Maire, and the budding romance between Nora and a mysterious shipwrecked sailor. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeney Agency.