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. . .