Fortune's Rocks

Fortune''s Rocks transports the reader to the turn of the twentieth century, to the world of a prominent Boston family summering on the New Hampshire coast...

''No praise is too high for Fortune''s Rocks. The book will take hold of you and not let you go until the last word'' USA Today

''Exceptionally fine . . . Shreve writes with power and passion'' Daily Express

Fourteen-year-old Olympic Biddeford is spending the summer with her parents at their seasonal house at Fortune''s Rocks. Her father handles her education himself and is in fact a publisher of mildly liberal literature. One author he admires, who also practises as a physician, comes to visit the house. Forty years old, married with four children, he embarks on an affair with Olympia. They have a swift, passionate summer, torn apart when they are discovered together during Olympic''s fifteenth birthday party.

Her parents are mortified and immediately take Olympia back to Boston. When a baby boy is born nine months later, he is taken from her and she finds herself in exile at a ladies college and then as a governess. She decides she must get her child back, which means returning to Fortune''s Rocks...