I received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book from the folks at Harper. It takes what feels like an all-too-familiar event as its starting place with Nora fleeing the Boston area as the scandal of her politician husband's affair becomes public knowledge. Nora takes her two daughters to the small Maine island where she lived until age five when her father moved her away after her mother mysteriously disappeared. Nora finds guidance from an aunt (the missing mother's sister) whom she hasn't seen since she left the island. The older of the two children, eleven year old Ella, is very angry at the world and takes it out on Nora. Flowing through the novel are questions about what happened to Nora's mother and some mysterious male characters.


I wanted to enjoy this as a simple, "beachy" read but struggled to stay involved. Some of the characters were interesting, but there were too many unrelated bits of drama thrown in. Overall, very little of the emotion felt real to me. There's a current of magic that felt very unsatisfying. Many issues, especially surrounding the magical elements, go unresolved but, to be frank, I wasn't invested enough to really care.


There are also a number of points at which the prose felt jumbled....not sure if they'll be resolved in the final copy but I haven't seen this extent of issues in other advance editions and some feel more like stylistic choices rather than grammar issues that could be easily resolved by editing. Three stars, saved from 2.5 because I enjoyed the aunt's character.