"A picturesque Maine beach town is the setting for Holly Chamberlin s touching and thought-provoking new novel, as a mother struggles to reconnect with her long lost daughter..."

Every year on March 26th, Verity Peterson visits Ogunquit Beach, where she puts a handwritten message into a bottle and launches it into the waves. It s a ritual of remembrance for the daughter she hasn t seen in sixteen years not since her baby s father, Alan, took two-month-old Gemma and disappeared. Verity keeps searching and hoping, sustained by the thought that someday she might get to be a mother to her own child. And finally, one phone call may change everything

Verity learns that Alan is now in jail on abduction charges and Marni Armstrong, born Gemma Peterson-Burns, is coming to live with Verity in Yorktide, Maine. But this isn t the joyful reunion Verity imagined. Gemma has been raised to believe Verity was an unfit mother who left Alan no choice but to take her out of harm s way. Over the course of one summer, Verity tries to reach a tough, wary young woman who s more stranger than daughter. And Gemma must reexamine everything she thought about her parents and decide whether to trust in a relationship that, though delicate as a seashell on the surface, could prove to be just as beautiful and resilient.

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Praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin

Chamberlin s latest is a great summer read but with substance. It will find a wide audience in its exploration of sisterhood, family, and loss. "Library Journal "on "Summer With My Sisters"

Nostalgia over real-life friendships lost and regained pulls readers

into the story. - "USA Today "on "Summer Friends""