Sea Escape

Griffin follows up Life Without Summer with a drearily similar novel that alternates between the present of Laura, a nurse and mother, and the past of Laura’s mother, Helen. When Helen suffers a stroke, Laura becomes the care advocate for a mother she has long felt distanced from, a job that affects her children and husband as well. In a bid to understand Helen’s clinging to the memory of her dead husband, Laura begins to read their love letters, which contain hints about long-buried family secrets that break the ice between Laura and Helen and allow Laura to deal openly and honestly with her own husband and children. Though most of the right women’s fiction boxes are checked, this suffers greatly from characters who don’t feel particularly real and plot complications that thud into place without adding tension. (July)