The Harbormaster's Daughter (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780451237873)

The story of a mother and daughter in an idyllic Cape Cod town...

On a freezing January night, LaRee Farnham answers a knock at her door to find a policewoman holding three-year-old Vita Gray, whose mother has just been murdered a few miles away. LaRee raises Vita with fierce love and attention, at the same time trying to shield her from the aftermath of the murder, which has deeply divided the histoiric village of Oyster Creek.

Born out of wedlock, Vita is the product of the town's two very different cultures: the hard-working fishing families of Portuguese descent and the "washashores" from the mainland, who've drifted to the coast for its beauty. At sixteen, Vita is shy and isolated, estranged from her father, and bullied at school, but she is determined to come out of herself, step-by-step.

When the shocking details of her past surface suddenly, Vita feels utterly betrayed by those closest to her, and the fraught tension between Oyster Creek's two cultures comes to a head. LaRee must ask hard questions about herself as a mother, while Vita turns to unexpected avenues to find meaning and discovers that the truth is almost never found in black-and-white...

Author: Heidi Jon Schmidt
ISBN-10: 0451237870
ISBN-13: 9780451237873
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 08/07/2012
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.40w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/25/2012 pg. 145