The Cottage at Glass Beach

Summary (from the publisher): The author of The Lace Makers of Glenmara returns with the enthralling tale of a woman who, in the wake of scandal, flees to a remote island off the coast of Maine to reconnect with her past-and come to terms with the childhood tragedy that still haunts her

Married to the youngest attorney general in Massachusetts state history, forty-year-old Nora Cunningham is a picture perfect political wife and doting mother. But her carefully constructed life falls to pieces when she -along with the rest of the world - learns of her husband Malcolm's infidelity.

Humiliated, hurt, hounded by the press, Nora packs up her daughters, Annie, seven, and Ella, twelve, and takes refuge with her maternal aunt on Burke's Island, a craggy spit of land off the coast of Maine. Settled by Irish immigrants, the island is a place where superstition and magic are carried on the ocean winds, and wishes and dreams wash ashore with the changing tides.

Nora spent her first five years on the island but has not been back to the remote community for decades-not since that long ago summer when her mother disappeared at sea. One night, while sitting alone on Glass Beach, below the cottage where she spent her childhood, Nora succumbs to grief, her tears flowing into the ocean. Days later she finds an enigmatic fisherman, Owen Kavanagh, shipwrecked on the rocks nearby. Is he, as her aunt's friend Polly suggests, a selkie, a mythical being of island legend, summoned by her heartbreak; or simply someone who, like Nora, is trying to find his way in the wake of his own personal struggles?

Just as she begins to regain her balance, her young daughters embark on a reckless odyssey of their own, a journey that will force Nora to find the courage to chart her own course-and finally face the truth about her marriage, her mother, and her past.

Review: I won this novel as a giveaway on Goodreads.

I tried really hard to like this novel more. It had a promising premise but it ended up greatly disappointing me. The Cottage at Glass Beach is about Nora, a politician's wife, who flees to the remote island of her birth with her two young daughters in the wake of her husband's infidelity. On the island, she reconnects with her aunt and meets a mysterious man, who may or may not be a mythical selkie.

I really liked the summary of this novel and was excited to see how Barbieri wove in the political element of Nora's husband,  as well as the remote location in Maine. I liked the descriptions of Nora's mother and the other island inhabitants, as well as the many images of the ocean. Alos, I love novels set on islands, and while this sounded like a chick lit/beach read, it still sounded promising.

I was not impressed with the quality of writing in this novel. The dialogue was stilted and the actual narrative was poorly done. I know this was an advance reader's copy of the book, but it read as if Barbieri was writing in bullet points and had yet to flesh out the story and what actually happened. I also was disappointed in the quality of the dialogue, which seemed stilted.  

I still think this novel has potential, if it could be fleshed out. In particular, I'd like to see more interaction/fleshing out of Nora's relationship with her husband. I think that would help give with the characterization issues this novel has and give Nora as a character a greater sense of history.

Stars: 2.5