Overview

In the summer of 1906, a young girl discovers a near lifeless, naked woman washed onto the shore of Pine Cove Key, a small island off the west coast of Florida. The child is convinced the woman is her mother who had disappeared years before. Residents of the island believe her mother was a victim of foul play. The storm-battered woman awakens in the home of the island's acrimonious grand matriarch. She gradually reveals to the homeowner's housemaid details of her privileged, although unfulfilled, life in New Orleans. Wracked with guilt over the abandonment of her family and her attempted suicide, she confesses the willful actions that had driven her to unthinkable choices and their resulting consequences. She also learns about the little girl responsible for saving her and the dismal circumstances surrounding the impoverished child's home life. With no means to leave and completely dependent on others, the woman wrestles with how she will survive in the small island community. She soon learns that her bleak situation cannot compare with two other women's despairing truths. The three women soon forge a resourceful bond empowering them to weather the storms of each one's forsaken ""island."" At last, through mounting concern for the little girl who discovered her on the shore, her heart awakens to compassion, love, and forgiveness.

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9781665306072

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Reviews

Those who loved the riches-to-rags story of The Little Princess and the natural bounty of The Secret Garden will enjoy this grown-up variation on Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic childhood morality tales. Eileen A. O'Hara's ISLANDS OF WOMEN is both an ode to the loveliness of the early 20th-century Florida Keys shoreline habitat and a story of human innocence, fall from grace, and redemption. The book's charming opening sentence introduces Penelope Worth, the plucky child protagonist and beating heart of the story, on the cusp of a discovery that sets off the novel's narrative: ""Penelope Worth limped to a stop and dropped her rear onto the glistening white sandy path."" Lively action and the introduction of sharply drawn characters quickly follow-chiefly Edna, whose nearly lifeless body Penelope discovers washed up on shore. As more characters are introduced, O'Hara deftly intermingles their troubles with historical problems of larger dimensions. The devastating 1896 Florida Keys hurricane-10 years prior to the year of this book's story-killed 31 people and destroyed many of the red cedar trees that played a major role in the area's economy. In ISLANDS OF WOMEN, it impoverished a widow whose family had made its fortunes in pencils made from those cedars, and it also seriously impaired the business of an accountant who had depended on railroad and turpentine industries decimated by the storm. The bitter, judgmental widow, the loyal housekeeper with whom she bickers, and a widow-turned-prostitute join Penelope and Edna as the key island women of the novel-unlikely partners in a miniature study profiling a specific time and place with universal dimensions... Anne Welsbacher for IndieReader

Author Information

Eileen O'Hara's debut novel Islands of Women isn't just for women. Throughout this heartfelt story of deception, resilience, and survival set in the early1900s, Eileen weaves life-challenging situations that in many ways mirror today's controversial issues. She hopes her characters will provide a testament to determination and courage for anyone facing challenges and hardship. A winner of the 2023 Northeast Georgia Writers Contest, Eileen earned a B.A. in Creative Writing at Eckerd College and a M.A. in English at USF/Tampa. When she isn't writing, she spends her time reading, gardening, and relishing life with her husband and two rescue felines in the North Georgia Highlands.

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