The Seasons Hereafter - Paperback

by Elisabeth Ogilvie (Author)

Vanessa Barton feels caged in her marriage and trapped by life in the small community of Bennett's Island. She blindly yearns for something, but doesn't know what, until Owen Bennett walks into her life. He inspires her passion, self-discovery and growth, enabling her to seize her own destiny, free of the emotional fetters of her youth.

Front Jacket

Vanessa Barton steps onto Bennett's Island for the first time as if she is stepping into a prison cell. She feels trapped by her marriage to the adoring but simple Barry Barton, she carries the emotional shackles of a childhood spent as a ward of the state, and she wants nothing to do with a community of meddling islanders. A chance encounter with the perceptive and tempestuous Owen Bennett sparks off an attraction that brings Vanessa to life, as she discovers something real that eclipses the fantasies of the novels she reads. Owen leads her on a path of self-discovery that forces her to confront long buried feelings and allows her, at last, to heal her emotional scars. Life on rugged Bennett's Island shakes Vanessa out of her self-pity and grants her the chance to experience life in all of its warmth, sharpness and glory. When misfortune knocks once again at her door, she must decide once and for all whether to succumb to the fugue of her earlier days or whether to seize her independence and happiness. Elizabeth Ogilvie transports her readers to another time and place as she infuses her characters with the convictions of real and powerful human emotions and spins her tale with tenderness and keen sensitivity. Bennett's Island breathes off the page of the book with the vitality and depths of its inhabitants. At turns lyric, dramatic and romantic The Seasons Hereafter, the second in the Lovers Trilogy, paints a picture of a woman's quest for self-determination and inspires yearning for a simpler bygone era.

Author Biography

Elisabeth Ogilvie wrote 46 books including The Seasons Hereafter, Strawberries in the Sea and her memoir My World is an Island. In 1947 she won the New England Women's Press Association award for Storm Tide. Ogilvie grew up in the greater Boston area, but lived in Maine from 1944 until her death in 2006 and remains one of Maine's best loved writers.