Esa Withrod is a young woman struggling over recent events in her personal life—a failed first relationship and resulting pregnancy—as well as the legacy of her desolate upbringing. Eccentric and enigmatic, Esa’s childhood has prepared her to deal with the world with endurance and resilience, but not with joy. She remains “mystified by kindness” and the friendship offered to her by her employer, Merle, a cartographer, and his partner, Daniel. The only bright spot in Esa’s childhood was the three months she spent in a house by the sea with her grandmother in the Maritimes when she was seven years old. Searching for that safe haven she knew as a child, Esa returns to her grandmother’s house to find that it is not possible to go back. Through a spring and summer of traumatic events in what has been her family’s homestead, she discovers the love of family, friendship, and the best of what people in a small community have to offer each other in times of difficulty.

Dian Day has worked as a reporter, counsellor, researcher, teacher, and artist. She holds an M.A. in Sociology and is the recipient of numerous academic awards. Dian has been writing fiction and poetry all of her life, beginning with an illustrated book entitled My Friend Robin, written in grade two. In the late 1990s, for several years in a row, she placed in both poetry and short story categories at the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia Atlantic Writing Competition. In 1998, her short story "Scratching the Surface" was published in The Gaspereau Review. In 2000, she received an Arts Grant from the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton for beginning work on this novel. Dian currently lives in Ottawa, but will be moving to Nova Scotia shortly (as a child she spent all her summers in Newfoundland where her parents are from originally).

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• Winner, IPPY Silver Medal Award for Literary Fiction

A smart and moving debut.…With nine pages of concise observation, Dian Day's prologue moves from abandonment, through hope, to a charmed and fleeting happiness, then a grim parental repossession. It's smartly conceived and movingly executed, and there's no choice but to read on.… Day's descriptive writing, from character traits to scene setting, is crisply evocative... The surging plot trajectory integrates grim humour, uncompromising pathos, an expertly wrangled supporting cast and a subtly woven mystery.