Synopses & Reviews
Under the summer sky, anything is possible....
Author of the acclaimed novels Cloud Nine and Follow the Stars Home, Luanne Rice returns with another moving portrait of a family in crisis—as three sisters come face-to-face with the past and find in each other the courage to go on.
Coolly sophisticated and steadfastly single, Caroline Renwick has always been the sister everyone could count on. As she and Clea and Skye gathered at Firefly Hill, their childhood home, Caroline thought that they had all put the past behind them. But as summer gets under way, a mysterious man arrives—a man who has the power to bring it all back....
Joe Connor was only six when his father died at Firefly Hill. Though he and Caroline had never met, the five-year-old girl reached out to him. They became pen pals and friends, until a teenaged Joe finally learned the truth about what had happened to his father that night. Now, after years of silence, Joe is suddenly here ... and Caroline still feels a connection. But she can't help but wonder if this handsome man holds the key to her family's healing—or its destruction. And in his presence, how long will she be able to guard her heart?
Synopsis
Three sisters gather at their childhood home, thinking they've put the past behind them. Caroline Renwick and Joe Connor were pen pals as children--until the teenaged Joe learned the truth of his father's death. After years of silence, Caroline still feels a connection, but she wonders if Joe holds the key to her family's healing--or it's destruction.
About the Author
LUANNE RICE is the author of Dream Country, Follow the Stars Home, Cloud Nine, Home Fires, Secrets of Paris, Stone Heart, Angels All Over Town, Crazy in Love (made into a TNT Network feature movie), and Blue Moon, which has been made into a CBS television movie. Her next novel, Summer Light, will be released in June 2001. She lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut, with her husband.
Author Q&A
In Firefly Beach, you describe the sister relationships as "geometric." What do you mean by that?When I do write books about sisters, I get letters from readers who are sisters, and they tell what it is like for them. This response is so important to me: writing is such a solitary existence in that when I am writing I am alone. And this can be for days and weeks. And of course I am one of three sisters. Firefly Beach is primarily about what happens when the geometry of a relationship changes. In the case of this novel, the change is love—Caroline finds her love again with Joe, and the change in her causes monumental shifts in the relationship with her sisters. Suddenly all this emotional landscape shifts and things come to the surface that have been covered for years and years. As beautiful as the love is for Caroline, the change is frightening and that's a very real thing.
\What makes the sibling connection such a powerful theme in your novels?
My first published short story was called "July," and it began with: "When we were young, my sisters and I would sit around and Olivia would say, "We came out of the same body.' It was true, and amazing." That says all, or at least most, of what I feel about the sibling relationship. It's mystical, almost beyond words.
You come into this world with the same blood, grow up under the same roof, know the words to the same songs, borrow each others' sweaters, make prank calls together, grieve over the same lost pets, race each other to the raft, vie for the attentions of the summer cop, search the tide line at Little Beach for blue sea glass and jingle shells. Age differences don't matter, gender doesn't matter, even feuds and estrangements don't matter. As my mother used to say when I was growing up, "You'll have many friends in life, but only two sisters." She was right. And I'll never stop writing about it.