Fortune's Rocks is a 1999 romance novel

Romance novel

The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...

 by bestselling author Anita Shreve

Anita Shreve

Anita Shreve is an American writer. The daughter of an airline pilot and a homemaker, she graduated from Dedham High School, attended Tufts University and began writing while working as a high school teacher in Reading MA. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting, was awarded...

. It is chronologically the first novel in Shreve's tetralogy to be set in a large beach house on the New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 coast that used to be a convent

Convent

A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

. It is followed by Sea Glass

Sea Glass

Sea Glass is a 2002 romance novel by Anita Shreve. It is chronologically the second novel in Shreve's informal trilogy to be set in a large beach house on the New Hampshire coast that used to be a convent...

, The Pilot's Wife

The Pilot's Wife

The Pilot's Wife : A Novel is a 1998 novel by Anita Shreve. It is chronologically the third novel in Shreve's informal trilogy to be set in a large beach house on the New Hampshire coast that used to be a convent...

and Body Surfing.

Plot introduction

In the summer of 1899, Olympia Biddeford, a privileged, intelligent and confident fifteen year old who is vacationing with her family at Fortune's Rocks, falls in love with a married 41-year-old doctor and journalist, John Haskell. Their passionate affair, and subsequent discovery, produces a son and leads to far-reaching consequences that span several decades.

The novel is loosely based on the seaside neighborhood of Fortunes Rocks, located in Biddeford, Maine

Biddeford, Maine

Biddeford is a town in York County, Maine, United States. It is the largest town in the county, and is the sixth-largest in the state. It is the most southerly incorporated town in the state and the principal commercial center of York County. The population was 21,277 at the 2010 census...

.

External links

• Telling the timeless tale: An Interview with Anita Shreve about Fortune's Rocks
• Salon Book Review