Donna Hemans

"She understood now that sometimes that desire to be seen as successful, to matter, was all that a person had or could control...She focused on mattering, on not being a person so easily distracted and left behind"

Synopsis (GR):
A 17 yearold taken from her mother at birth, an Episcopal priest with a daughter whose face he cannot bear to see, a mother weary of searching for her lost child: Tea by the Sea is their story-that of a family uniting and unraveling. To find the daughter taken from her, Plum Valentine must find the child's father who walked out of a hospital with the day-old baby girl without explanation. Seventeen years later, weary of her unfruitful search, Plum sees an article in a community newspaper with a photo of the man for whom she has spent half her life searching. He has become an Episcopal priest. Her plan: confront him and walk away with the daughter he took from her. From Brooklyn to the island of Jamaica, Tea by the Sea traces Plum's circuitous route to find her daughter and how Plum's and the priest's love came apart.

This is a wonderfully written tale of family secrets, forbidden love, abandonment but most of all a search for agency & belonging. The novel is very well written and it was a character driven story. Plum is a fantastic protagonist and her resilience and search for belonging just captures your heart from the very first moment she is introduced. Lenworth, although his actions are horrible and set the events into motion, is a character that you will love to hate for many years to come. Opal, their daughter has grown up feeling like something is missing in her life and doesn't quite understand why she doesn't feel seen by her father, even though he has raised her. All the characters were beautifully written & perfectly capture what is like to be Caribbean and be caught in between two worlds, always longing for home.

This novel had so much depth. The author's prose & use of metaphors throughout the tale brings the story to life. The places described were so vivid, I could imagine travelling back and forth between Jamaica and Brooklyn. I felt the ending was perfect & the last line left me speechless.

Bookdragon rates it 5🔥… (meer)

Imagine waking up in the hospital the day after giving birth and asking to see your child only to find out that the baby is gone - she has been taken from the hospital by her father with no indication of where he was taking her or why he was taking her from her mother. Imagine searching 17 years for your baby and following every lead while you try to maintain your own life without losing your mind. And then, by accident, he is found - how will she make him pay for what he's done to her life?

This is Plum's story. Her parents in New York City sent her to an aunt in Jamaica to finish her school so that she would stay out of trouble. This move caused her to feel more abandoned by her parents than she did while living in their house where no one really paid attention to her. She becomes friends with her chemistry teacher, and then more than friends as she feels that being loved and accepted by him will remove her feelings of abandonment. She wakes up the day after their baby is born to find that he has taken the baby and disappeared from her life. Once again she's been left behind and she struggles with that feeling as she begins her search for her baby. For the next 17 years, she searches for her baby even as she marries and has twin daughters, she still wonders if she will ever see her oldest daughter again. Accidently she sees a newspaper article about a priest in NYC and knows immediately it is the father of her baby. Will she finally be able to find the daughter that she has searched for?

This novel is beautifully written - both the characters and the scenery in Jamaica were beautifully described. I felt that pain that Plum was feeling at the loss of her daughter and the reason behind her continued search. I also understood but didn't approve of the reasons that the baby was taken away by her father and the guilt that he felt as he wondered if he had done the right thing.

This is a novel of love and loss, a novel about trying to do the right thing and then questioning yourself for what you did. It was beautiful written and a story that I won't soon forget.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.… (meer)