The Cottage at Glass Beach: A Novel [Hardcover]

Heather Barbieri (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 15, 2012

Heather Barbieri follows her acclaimed Gaelic-tinged drama The Lace Makers of Glenmara with the resonant tale of a woman who, in the wake of scandal, flees to a remote Maine island to reconnect with her past—and to come to terms with the childhood tragedy that has haunted her for a lifetime.

Set on the rugged New England coast, Barbieri’s The Cottage at Glass Beach strikes the perfect balance between high lit and mainstream women’s fiction, infusing a potent and unforgettable love story with unforgettable characters that will remain with you long after the final chapter. Richly evocative, Barbieri’s narrative of intimacy, struggle, and redemption will call out to readers of Joanne Harris, Alice Hoffman, and other modern masters of drama.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Nora Cunningham brings her daughters to Burke’s Island in New England to escape the scandal surrounding her politician husband’s affair. Her aunt Maire is thrilled, but not all of the residents are so welcoming. The silence surrounding the long-ago disappearance of Maeve, Nora’s mother, not to mention the sudden appearance of a shipwrecked man with no memory, is a dark current propelling the story forward. Ella, Nora’s 12-year-old, misses her father fiercely, but 7-year-old Annie is drawn to the sea and, especially, a strange young boy named Ronan. The writing elevates this story above the usual wronged-mother-finds-herself story, and the harsh and, in the right hands, productive island is a character in itself. Readers who require strict realism may be turned off by the touch of the paranormal, but Barbieri does such a wonderful job setting up the beauty and mystery of the island and its rich Gaelic roots that it is not a stretch to ask the reader to imagine that the place is also magical. A wonderful, subtle, transporting story. For readers who enjoyed Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells (2007) and Brunonia Barry’s The Lace Reader (2008). --Susan Maguire

Review

“Where Barbieri shines is in her depiction of the microcosm of the island and in the strong links between the generations. Nora discover that ‘Everything is connected. The geography of the island, of the soul,’ and Barbieri makes that connection real.” (Melinda Bargreen, Seattle Times )

“A must read for fans of Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells.” (Tara Quinn, Cleveland Plain Dealer )

“Barbieri’s mix of fairy tale and family drama in a picturesque seaside resort makes her third novel a terrific beach read.” (Library Journal )

“Part seaside fairytale, part exploration of real-world tensions....Let yourself be transported to Burke’s Island, a salt-tinged place steeped in legends of selkies and shipwrecks, but also full of bruised and hopeful people making their wayward, human ways toward happiness.” (Marisa de los Santos, author of Falling Together and Belong to Me )

“Heather Barbieri’s The Cottage at Glass Beach is a moving, heartfelt story told with vivid description. Open the book and listen—you’ll hear the waves crashing onto the shore.” (Sarah Jio, author of The Bungalow and The Violets of March )

“Strikes the perfect balance between high lit and mainstream women’s fiction, infusing a potent and unforgettable love story with unforgettable characters that will remain with you long after the final chapter....[Barbieri’s narrative] will call out to readers of Joanne Harris, Alice Hoffman, and other modern masters of drama.” (Bookreporter.com )

“The Cottage at Glass Beach, an enchanting novel about mothers and daughters on an isolated island, is a romantic, delicious read. Barbieri’s beautiful writing and beguiling world view revel in the realities and the mysteries of the sea and of life itself.” (Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author of Heat Wave )

“Barbieri does such a wonderful job setting up the beauty and mystery of the island and its rich Gaelic roots that it is not a stretch to ask the reader to imagine that the place is also magical. A wonderful, subtle, transporting story.” (Susan Maguire, Booklist, starred review )

“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.” (Publishers Weekly )

“Threads of magical realism throughout the book are quite appealing, and the seaside setting is enchanting.” (Melissa Parcel, Romantic Times Book Review )

“Barbieri’s deft writing style is charmingly wry yet evocative, with details and descriptions both telling and vivid. . . . . A sweet summertime yarn [that] . . . provides a lovely, leisurely escape to the bucolic charms of the Emerald Isle.” (Karen Campbell, Boston Globe on The Lace Makers of Glenmara )

“The Lace Makers of Glenmara is richly peopled and beguilingly charming but what ultimately makes it so moving is Heather Barbieri’s deep understanding that no life is immune from sorrow and difficulty. I read this wonderful novel with enormous pleasure.” (Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street on The Lace Makers of Glenmara )

“Ms. Barbieri’s writerly sense of whimsy and retrospection implies that anyone can work through adversity to happiness - if only the volition is present.” (Nancy Carty Lepri, New York Journal of Books )

“The Lace Makers of Glenmara is a charming, moving story, written with a delicate touch.” (Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and The Girl with No Shadow, on The Lace Makers of Glenmara )

“Reminiscent of Maeve Binchy’s stories of romance and family in tight-knit Irish communities, The Cottage at Glass Beach is full of warmth and sympathy.” (Katie Schneider, The Oregonian )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper (May 15, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062107968
• ISBN-13: 978-0062107961
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #384,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author of two previous novels, The Lace Makers of Glenmara, and Snow in July, Heather Barbieri has won international prizes for her short fiction. She lives in Seattle with her husband and three children.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The writing is lovely April 29, 2012

By E. B. MULLIGAN VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

For me the best part of The Cottage at Glass Beach was it flashed me right back to summers at the Connecticut shore with my young parents and my two little sisters. The author does a wonderful job of putting you right on the beach and right at the dinner table where everything tastes better after a long day in the sun (followed by a cool refreshing bath or shower). It was perfect for this spring day resting on the couch after a long week in the office.

College Sweethearts Nora and Malcolm have been together for 15 years, two children later Nora is devastated when Malcolm has an affair. By the end of the book Malcolm is such a jerk I can't see that he and Nora ever had emotional intimacy. Seven year-old Annie is aamazingly mature by the end of the book, while twelve year-old Ella remain a wretchedly unlikeable Daddy's girl who appears never to have bonded with her mother.

Nora's Aunt Maire McGann lives on remote Burke's Island, Maine (small yet thriving) where Nora was born. Her father took her off-island when Nora's mother, Maeve, disappeared (presumed dead) when Nora was five years old (found walking the beach - with her mom nowhere to be found). Nora had not returned to the Island since then, her father had prevented Maire from contacting Nora, her Aunt reaches out again out to offer refuge and Nora leaves Boston with her daughters to take stock and find a new direction.

The writing is lovely; it's the story that was a bit off. It just didn't seem complete, what was Owen, a fisherman who washes in with the tide (literally a gift from the sea) all about? The last two chapters just didn't do it for me, I guess the first third was so good I was expecting the rest to do even better.

The site `born as glitter org chai selkiepaper', opened my eyes to the possibilities of the story and include a snippet here:

"In Irish folklore, there are many stories about creatures who can transform themselves from seals to humans. These beings are called selkies, silkies, selchies, roane, or simply seal people. The seals would come up onto rocks or beaches and take off their skins, revealing the humans underneath. One of the most common themes found in selkie folklore is romantic tragedy. Selkie women were supposed to be so beautiful that no man could resist them. They were said to have perfect proportions and dark hair. They also made excellent wives. For this reason, one of the most common selkie stories is that of a man stealing a selkie woman's seal skin. Without her skin, she cannot return to the sea, and so she marries the human man and has children with him. She is a good wife and mother, but because her true home is in the sea, she always longs for it. In the stories, she ends up finding her seal skin that her husband has hidden, or one of her children unwittingly finds it and brings it to her. According to legend, once a selkie find her skin again, "neither chains of steel nor chains of love can keep her from the sea" (The Secret of Roan Inish). She returns to the ocean, usually leaving her children behind with their grief-stricken father. Selkie men were also said to be very handsome, with almost magical power to seduce human women. They would take off their seal skins and go looking on shore for "unsatisfied women," mainly women unhappy in their marriages. If a woman wished a selkie man to come to her, she had to shed seven tears into the sea at high tide. `

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The sea...a story February 22, 2012

By wogan TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Heather Barbieri writes a tale that is both familiar and modern and also a fantasy.
Nora is the mother of 2 young girls, Ella -12 and Annie- 6. She also is the wife of a philandering state attorney general and returns to her original island home after being harassed by the press. She reunites with her aunt and here the tale begins its mystery. What happened to Nora's mother and what will happen with Nora's life? One daughter is filled with anger and the other is becoming quietly aware of the mysteries of the island.
The writing draws a reader into Nora's life and the people of the island, her aunt and the mysterious fisherman washed up on their beach.

My one advice for anyone reading a story, would be, that to enjoy it to the fullest, one should have at least some familiarity with the background of the surroundings or the people. The main characters are well described in this book and we feel we know them, but one part is missing.

....Warning....for some this might be considered a plot spoiler....the story... the myth that is intertwined in this tale is that of the selkie. Seals that can shed their skin to become human on land. One of the most touching renditions of this legend is Gordon Bok's "Peter Kagan and the Wind". If you know this legend or read its lyrics, you will have a better idea of this fantasy that some believe in. A reader will have to decide what the truth in `The Cottage at Glass Beach `is. It can be an interesting journey, but a more haunting one, if perhaps this legend was introduced in a prelude in the book. It just seems, that if you do not know this legend, parts of the book would be either confusing or just overlooked in their implications - although we can never know what is truth and what might be fantasy.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, emotional, but not perfection June 8, 2012

By Heather Davis TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Fairy tales meet reality in Heather Barbieri's novel, The Cottage at Glass Beach.

In The Cottage at Glass Beach, with a hazy past and an uncertain future, Nora is a woman facing major life changes. Her husband has been aught cheating and Nora has retreated to the small island home of her late mother. With two daughters in tow, Nora must figure out how to move forward with her life and gain clarity for her life. With the help of her aunt and a mysterious shipwrecked man, Nora begins to find peace.

There are definite highs and lows to The Cottage at Glass Beach. It was easy to sympathize with all the characters. Nora's husband is a selfish, clueless man who moved on from Nora, his "starter" wife. Nora is crushed, confused, and at a loss at where to go from there. I really like Nora's character, she is a wonderful mother, dedicated to her girls. However, somewhere along the way, she lost her sense of self. She became a politician's wife and the more engrossed she became in being a wife and mother, the farther away from her true self she became. When she returns to the cottage where she lived with her mother, her childhood memories and her past remind her of what she loves, the sea, art, and a peaceful life. Nora's daughters each have their own quirks and emotions. The older daughter is confused and places blame in the wrong places. The younger daughter is constantly searching for the silver lining and for adventure. The realities of this families situation were quite believable and worked for the story.

Heather Barbieri created a beautiful setting, a small island town filled with caring people and magic in the air. I loved the setting and envisioning the beach was easy to do. The magic and mythology hinted at through the story was quite intriguing. There is a fairy tale like quality to the book that kept me reading and guessing as to the family's origins.

While I thoroughly enjoyed much of the book, I did have some problems in a few areas. I was often frustrated with the oldest daughter, Ella. Ella, in typical 12 year old fashion, had a major attitude throughout the book. This is to be expected, however, the problem was that she was never corrected, she was allowed to think the wrong thing and to place blame on her mother. Nora never really sat her down and explained the situation to her daughters, she just let them work it out themselves, and that just didn't sit well with me. The relationships overall in The Cottage at Glass Beach are not fully developed. The romance and relationship between Owen and Nora is slow and unclear. Many of the relationships are never resolved by the end of the book.

While I loved the hints of magic and mythology throughout the book, the hints were just not enough. I kept waiting for the magic to play a more central role and be clarified. I was disappointed that I was confused and left to come to my own conclusions on this front, the magic could have benefitted from better development through the story. This all culminates with the ending. I was less than satisfied with the ending, I felt that the story was left open. Nora's next steps are not explained, her relationship with Owen is not explained, her relationship with her daughters is still unclear, and overall, I was not pleased.

The Cottage at Glass Beach is a beautiful and emotional book, but with a lack of clarity and an unsatisfying ending, this book missed the bar for me. With a bit more clarity and development (and maybe an epilogue) this book would have been an excellent read. I enjoyed the book enough that I would read more by Heather Barbieri in the future, and I think that The Cottage at Glass Beach would make for a good, relaxing summer read.

*I received this book for review*