A picturesque Maine beach town is the setting for Holly Chamberlinās touching and thought-provoking new
novel, as a mother struggles to reconnect with her long lost daughter ā¦
Every year on March 26th, Verity Peterson visits Ogunquit Beach, where she puts a handwritten message into a
bottle and launches it into the waves. Itās a ritual of remembrance for the daughter she hasnāt seen in sixteen yearsā
not since her babyās father, Alan, took two-month-old Gemma and disappeared. Verity keeps searching and hoping,
sustained by the thought that someday she might get to be a mother to her own child. And finally, one phone call may
change everything ā¦
Verity learns that Alan is now in jail on abduction chargesāand Marni Armstrong, born Gemma Peterson-Burns,
is coming to live with Verity in Yorktide, Maine. But this isnāt the joyful reunion Verity imagined. Gemma has been
raised to believe Verity was an unfit mother who left Alan no choice but to take her out of harmās way. Over the course
of one summer, Verity tries to reach a tough, wary young woman whoās more stranger than daughter. And Gemma
must reexamine everything she thought about her parentsāand decide whether to trust in a relationship that, though
delicate as a seashell on the surface, could prove to be just as beautiful and resilient