Sandcastles

Honor Sullivan is a painter who has built a quiet life for herself and her three daughters, Regis, Agnes, and Cecilia, on the Connecticut shore. She teaches art at Star of the Sea Academy, a convent school with a lovely seaside campus, where her sister-in-law, Mother Superior Bernadette Ignatius, looks after the community with a kind but attentive eye. Then headstrong Regis arrives home with startling news: she is getting married. The announcement sets off changes that nobody in the family saw coming.

Eleven years earlier, Honor believed she had everything, a home, a great love, and a settled future. Her husband, John Sullivan, a gifted photographer and sculptor, broke her heart and left the family in pieces. Word of Regis's engagement now draws him out of the exile he imposed on himself, and he comes back to the people he has always loved above all else. He finds one daughter still wounded by his leaving, another who hardly remembers him, and a third who may be facing more trouble than anyone realizes. And he finds Honor, and a bond between them that was interrupted but never faded.

The title points to the central idea: like sandcastles, some things cannot withstand the tide. Yet love, family, and friendship, though just as delicate, can endure almost anything. Mending the break between father and daughter, husband and wife, and past and present will take something close to a miracle, and a miracle may be just what is taking shape at Star of the Sea Academy. This is a warm family story about forgiveness and second chances, and about whether you are willing to believe in them.