Daughters of the Sea [Paperback]

Ellyn Bache (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2009

Three generations of women, each with a special attraction to water, yearn to find where they belong. Ernie, 70 years old and ailing, is a dowser who finds underground water with a stick. Veronica, 38, has moved inland after many years near the sea, only to realize how powerfully she misses it. Her 19-year-old daughter, Simpson, feels an affinity for a tranquil mountain lake that soon yields a terrifying secret.

Living in forced togetherness far from the ocean, the women struggle against the weight of responsibilities they long to escape. Not until they understand that it's possible to be a daughter of the sea anywhere does each one finally make the pilgrimage that will set her free.

Editorial Reviews

Review

All the characters in Daughters of the Sea by Ellyn Bache are floating in life, even those who appear anchored . . . This rich book balances multiple stories and characters while clearly and logically showing them growing and changing as they work their way through complicated life issues. The reader is drawn along in this charming, delightful book, filled with surprises and a combination of emotion, humor and mystery. --Romantic Times Book Review. Top Pick

Is there a place that defines you? For three women ripped from the ocean and thrown together in a farmhouse, this is the question, as each one tries to understand her connection to the sea and its influence over her life. Bache guides these women and her reader as the tide pulls the sea, moving forward, crashing on the sand, then pulling back to a deeper understanding of life. Daughters of the Sea is at times humorous, but at the same moment a profound look at life.” --Tideland News (Morehead City, NC)

About the Author

Ellyn Bache is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books, including the novel Safe Passage, which was made into a movie starring Susan Sarandon, and a short story collection that won the Willa Cather Fiction Prize. She divides her time between Greenville, South Carolina, and the Philadelphia suburbs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Banks Channel Books (February 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889199133
• ISBN-13: 978-1889199139
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,324,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I started writing when my first two children were toddlers, we were living in a tiny apartment in West Virginia where I knew no one, and my husband and I were sharing one car. I got out only a few days a week and desperately needed some "adult" work for those long, homebound afternoons. When I volunteered to write a press release for the humane society, it appeared in the local paper, complete with my byline. I was hooked! I think I've written something almost every day in the 30+ years since.

I started out as a freelance newspaper journalist -- something even a stay-at-home mom could do -- and spent six years teaching myself to write fiction (six years of rejections!) before my first stories began appearing in magazines like McCall's, Good Housekeeping and Seventeen, which published lots of fiction in those days, and in literary magazines like The Carolina Quarterly.

I wrote my first novel, SAFE PASSAGE, after the youngest of my four children went to school, and I've been writing novels ever since. In 1995, SAFE PASSAGE became a movie starring Susan Sarandon, a great thrill, and many of the other books have received various recognitions and awards. But the greatest thrill has been the privilege having a long, satisfying career that has also let me spend so much time with my family. What more could any writer want?

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars itty profound look at middle age crisis, September 28, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Daughters Of The Sea (Harlequin Next Tall) (Mass Market Paperback)

In her late thirties and unhappy, Veronica Legacy decides it is time to pull up anchor, give up on the secure middle class existence she lives and start anew. Accompanied by her twenty years old daughter Simpson, Veronica leaves her spouse to return to the only place she ever felt at home, the farm of beloved septuagenarian Ernestine Trueheart. She doubts her husband will notice that the two women in his life have left him.

However, though welcomed by Ernestine, Veronica realizes you can't come home as nothing remains the same. The energetic Ernestine of memory is a slowly dying elderly woman. Still she offers Veronica what she most needs a sense of worth and belonging, but will that prove enough for an adult seeking a haven from the storms of life?

This is a terrific slice of life character study that showcases intriguing individuals, especially Veronica, struggling with problems that have thrown them into a depression yet come out fighting for what they believe in. Veronica is the center of this interesting tale, but the support cast mainly Ernestine and Simpson make her a fully developed protagonist. Fans will appreciate this fine often witty but always profound look at middle age crisis.

Harriet Klausner