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Simon & Schuster
June 2011
On Sale: June 7, 2011
Featuring: Laura Martinez
304 pages
ISBN: 143918061X
EAN: 9781439180617
Paperback
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Women's Fiction Contemporary
Acclaimed novelist and nationally recognized family expert Lynne Griffin returns with Sea Escapeβan emotional, beautifully imagined story inspired by the authorβs family letters about the ties that bind mothers and daughters. Laura Martinez is wedged in the middle place, grappling with her busy life as a nurse, wife, and devoted mom to her two young children when her estranged mother, Helen, suffers a devastating stroke. In a desperate attempt to lure her mother into choosing life, Laura goes to Sea Escape, the pristine beach home that Helen took refuge in after the death of her beloved husband, Joseph. There, Laura hunts for the legendary love letters her father wrote to her mother when he served as a reporter for the Associated Press during wartime Vietnam. Believing the beauty and sway of her fatherβs words will have the power to heal, Laura reads the letters bedside to her mother, a woman who once spoke the language of fabricβof Peony Sky in Jade and Paradise Garden Sageβbut who canβt or wonβt speak to her now. As Laura delves deeper into her tangled family history, she becomes increasingly determined to save her mother. As each letter reveals a patchwork detail of her parentsβ marriage, she discovers a common thread: a secret that mother and daughter unknowingly share. Weaving back and forth from Lauraβs story to her motherβs, beginning in the idyllic 1950s with Helenβs love affair with Joseph through the tumultuous Vietnam War period on to the present, Sea Escape takes a gratifying look at what women face in their everyday livesβthe balancing act of raising capable and happy children and being accomplished and steadfast wives while still being gracious and good daughters. It is a story that opens the door to family secrets so gripping, you wonβt be able to put this book down until each is revealed.
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