The Ocean In Winter by Elizabeth de Veer

You won't want to put it down once you start., Wise, beautiful, moving, sad, rich.It makes you feel less alone on the trying, miraculous journey of being alive., Tenderness, steel, and rage forge the relationships of three sisters in the aftermath of their mother's suicide. Ocean in Winter is a page-turner of a book with a family mystery at its core, and profoundly explores the ways in which women struggle to rebuild their lives after grief and trauma. An unforgettable story about grief, love, and what it means to be haunted, The Ocean in Winter marks the debut of a remarkable new voice in fiction.ĭo we choose our memories, or do our memories choose us? That's the central question for the three sisters in Elizabeth de Veer's emotionally rich, incandescent debut novel. Comforted by her unexpected presence, Alex holds back her nagging questions: How had Riley found her? Wouldn't the dirt roads have been impassable in the storm? Why did Riley insist on disappearing back into the night? After her mysterious visitation, Alex and Colleen are determined to reconcile with Riley and to face their painful past, but the closer they come to finding their missing sister, the more they fear they'll only be left with Riley's secrets. Riley has long been estranged from their family, prompting Colleen to hire the private investigator from whom they'd been awaiting news.

When Alex opens it, her beautiful younger sister stands before her. The lights are out because of the storm then, an unexpected knock at the door. Alex sits alone in an old farmhouse she inherited from a stranger. Then, on a March night, a storm rages near the coast of northeastern Massachusetts. Decades may have passed, but the unresolved trauma of their mother's death still looms over them, creating distance between the sisters. Alex, a nurse, has been traveling in India and grieving her struggle to have a child Colleen is the devoted mother of preteens in denial that her marriage is ending and Riley has been leading what her sisters imagine to be the dream life of a successful model in New York City. Now the girls are grown and navigating different directions. After their mother's suicide, the girls' father shut down emotionally, leaving Alex responsible for caring for Colleen, then eight, and little Riley, just four. The lives of the three Emery sisters were changed forever when Alex, eleven at the time, found their mother drowned in the bathtub of their home.

The Ocean In Winter by Elizabeth de Veer