The Chinaberry Album (The Bay Harbor Saga) - Softcover

Ruth Coe Chambers

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0989010910 ISBN 13: 9780989010917

Publisher: Secluded Cove Press, 2013

Synopsis

The Chinaberry Album tells a genteel coming of age story set during World War II in a once-sleepy town on Florida's Gulf Coast. Anna Lee Owens, the young daughter of a deputy sheriff, begins to realize that there are disturbing secrets in her family, that her quiet hometown runs by unspoken rules, and that often the smartest thing to do is to listen to your instincts.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

The sly innocence of nine-year-old Anna Lee Owens as she exposes the skeletons in the closets of Bay Harbor's respected citizens is the means through which the reader comprehends events in this subtly ominous first novel. The child Anna Lee mouths "Yes, ma'am," like a proper small-town Floridian, but her sophisticated inner demon prods her to find out why God-demented Miss Red (owner of the chinaberry tree) continues to be called "Miss" even though she has a flesh-and-blood daughter, and what secret compels beautiful Helen Armstrong to stay with a husband who beats her. Of greatest significance, however, is Anna Lee's beloved Uncle Johnn, a rakehell now living placidly in the bosom of the family, but mysteriously tied to dead Aunt Grace who, even in the grave, is still regarded with suspicion. Like most backwater villages, Bay Harbor is rank with nasty little secrets, whose intimations Anna Lee examines with not-quite-informed interest. Eventually, she develops a secret of her own: her real Mama, she learns, is Aunt Grace, now perceived to be the romantic object not only of Uncle Johnn but of Daddy himself. Chambers's auspicious debut is marred somewhat by her ambitious effort to view events exclusively through a child's eyes, but the narrative rarely falters in tone or in the sense of hushed anticipation it conveys.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Secluded Cove Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0989010910
• ISBN 13: 9780989010917
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284