Sea Glass is a 2002 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 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 second novel in Shreve's informal trilogy 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 preceded by Fortune's Rocks and followed by 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...

.

Plot introduction

In 1929 New England, the newly married Sexton and Honora Beecher arrange to buy the old beach house they are renting, but when the Depression strikes their small town, their hopes are dashed. Sexton goes to work at the nearby mill and becomes involved with a plan to form a union, which eventually leads to disaster; events conspire to undermine the Beechers' marriage as well as their financial hopes and dreams.

Quote

"The only problem with looking for sea glass...is that you never look up. You never see the view. You never see the houses or the ocean, because you're afraid you'll miss something in the sand."

External links

• The Origins of Sea Glass: by the author