During the summer of 1946, twenty-year-old Elizabeth is doing what she has dreamed of since she was a little girl: working in the theatre. Elizabeth is passionate about her work and determined to learn all she can at the summer theatre company on the sea where she is an apprentice actress. She’s never felt so alive. And soon she finds another passion: Kurt Canitz, the dashing young director of the company, and the first man Elizabeth’s ever kissed who has really meant something to her. Then Elizabeth’s perfect summer is profoundly shaken when Kurt turns out not to be the kind of man she thought he was.

Moving and romantic, this coming-of-age story was written during the 1940s. As revealed in an introduction by the author’s granddaughter Léna Roy, the protagonist Elizabeth is close to an autobiographical portrait of L’Engle herself as a young woman—“vibrant, vulnerable, and yearning for love and all that life has to offer.”

"Written in the late '40s but not taken on by L'Engle's agent, this posthumously published novel is more artifact than timeless story. As such, it will primarily interest readers who want to know more about the author of the groundbreaking A Wrinkle in Time especially because an introduction by L'Engle's granddaughter Lna Roy identifies it as semiautobiographical. Elizabeth, like L'Engle a graduate of Smith College, has convinced her controlling guardian aunt to let her take a scholarship apprenticeship at a summer theater, even though her aunt vigorously opposes Elizabeth's lifelong passion for the stage. Set over a long weekend, the action revolves around Elizabeth's infatuation with a womanizing director from the city and her subsequent disillusionment; luckily a decent fellow is around to pledge his love to her. Even with a veil thrown over the characters' sex lives, L'Engle suggests the intimacy, good and bad, within a theater company, and her dialogue pungently evokes the period. The tidiness of the resolutions betrays the inexperience of the writer — which, paradoxically, may endear this work to L'Engle fans. And although the conflicts are dated, the heroine's yearnings often transcend the '40s setting. Ages 12 — up. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Moving and romantic, this coming-of-age story was written during the 1940s. The protagonist Elizabeth closely resembles an autobiographical portrait of author Madeleine L'Engle as a young woman--"vibrant, vulnerable, and yearning for love and all that life has to offer."Farrar, Straus & Giroux

MADELEINE L’ENGLE (1918–2007) was the author of many books for children and adults. She was perhaps best known for the Time Quintet, especially A Wrinkle in Time, which won a Newbery Medal, and her books featuring the Austin family, including the Newbery Honor Book A Ring of Endless Light.