By Phyllis Rommens
Special to THE DAILY

At the young age of 29, Sydney has been both widowed and divorced and is searching for a path to follow for the rest of her life.

She has been hired to tutor Julie, the teenage daughter of the Edwards family during the family’s summer vacation. Julie is being prepped to take her SATs in the hope of obtaining a good college placement.

It is not long before Sydney realizes that this dream of Julie’s mom is very unrealistic. Julie is a beautiful, sweet girl, but she is undeniably slow.

When Sydney begins the summer with the family, it is only Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, Julie and herself present for the first few weeks. (Throughout the book, the formal names of “Mr. and Mrs. Edwards” are used almost exclusively.)

Then the Edwardses’ two sons arrive for a weekend and the family dynamic changes. Jeff is a college professor and has a girlfriend, Victoria, back in the city.

Ben has a successful career in real estate. The two young men share a sport that Sydney has enjoyed: body surfing.

The first night of Ben and Jeff’s visit, they decide to body surf together — something that their mother would be horrified to know. They invite Sydney to join them. Sydney is fearful but not wanting to seem a poor sport, she dives into the waves.

Later, riding one of the waves, she feels a touch along the length of her body.

She is unable to scream because she is caught up in the surge of the wave.

Once on her feet, she calls out and Ben answers from nearby. Shortly thereafter, Jeff answers from a distance. Sydney decides that Ben has to have been the person who touched her. However, Sydney makes no accusations and keeps the incident to herself.

Victoria arrives the next day to spend the weekend with Jeff and the family. Mrs. Edwards is clearly expecting the couple to announce their engagement during the visit.

There is a dinner party with several of the Edwardses’ friends, but no engagement announcement is forthcoming.

During dessert Julie casually leaves with just a wave of her hand. Julie doesn’t arrive home until late, and then in a dangerously drunken state.

Sydney and Jeff have been searching for her without success, so Sydney attends to Julie throughout the night.

The two out of the ordinary occurrences — the unwanted touching during the body surfing outing and Julie’s unusual behavior — foreshadow the entire summer at the Edwardses and indeed the rest of the book.

Everything that comes after this unusual weekend is influenced in some way by these two disparate events. The reader is caught up in the lives of these characters and is carried along until the final surprising end.

Anita Shreve is an excellent author, but her books do not follow the pattern found in most novels.

Each chapter is subdivided informally into segments that detail what different characters are doing at any given time.

I have read novels by Shreve and found them to be intriguing.

The house that the Edwardses own at the beach is the same house that is featured in several other of Ms. Shreve’s novels. This adds an interesting element to this story as one wonders about the fate of the house and whether it will reappear in future novels.

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