Waterwoman

By: Lenore Hart

Narrated by: Julie Yelen

Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

A beautifully sensual coming-of-age story about sibling rivalry, love, and betrayal, set in 1920.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia is beautiful, unspoiled, but isolated. Bracketed by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the Chesapeake Bay on the west, its residents live by farming or commercial fishing. They rarely long for much beyond what they have. But Annie Revels, a plain, lonely young woman, has long envied what she sees as her father's free and exciting-looking life out on the water. She would be working alongside him, except for one thing: She was born not a son, but a daughter. And women and boats don't mix, or so everyone tells her. Annie's not like her younger sister Rebecca, who enjoys all the feminine trappings of girlhood. And she doesn't feel close to her mother, a sad, quiet invalid who rarely gets out of bed.

The Revels family depends on the water for their living, but for those who work on the sea, tragedy is always just one bad storm away. After her father's untimely death, Annie finally gets her wish, though not in the way she had wanted to. After the funeral, she takes up his occupation as a waterman, or rather, a waterwoman, in order to support her mother and sister. The days are long and the work grueling, harder than she'd ever imagined. When she meets fishing guide Nathan Combs, she finally sees a glimpse of a life she had always thought would elude her. But Annie never counted on the shocking kind of betrayal that can only come from those who are closest to you.

As she notes, "In order to live on the Shore, you need to understand that good weather always follows bad." And she will need every ounce of that strength and optimism in order to survive the coming storm....

"...Hart creates a believable world where tragedy does not always equal hopelessness, a place where you don't always get what you want, but if you're strong, you find reasons to go on living anyway." (Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)

©2015 Lenore Hart (P)2019 Northampton House Press

Immersive, relatable, and well-written

Somehow, this book had me feeling nostalgic for an an place and era I've never lived in. As an audiobook-lover, listening to "Waterwoman" was a pleasure with a great narrator who perfectly captured the main character's sense of self and style of speaking.
Admittedly, I am a sucker for a sibling story so I was hooked from the very first line.
Hart has a way of writing where one can forget they're reading and instead feel they're living right alongside the novel's main character, Annie Revels, especially in audiobook format.
"Waterwoman" touches on a range of themes from duty and identity to jealousy and betrayal all in a natural and attentive way.
It was fun to see how both sisters would react to each new obstacle thrown in their path, and it's a complement to the author that I was able to anticipate their actions like old friends. I caught myself saying in my mind, "Well, Annie will *not* like that."
The book was threaded together by little bits of sibling rivalry that I kept waiting to watch build, and I was not disappointed.
There will be twists and it'll be a worthy listen!

Compelling story, artfully written

Annie Revels knows what she wants out of life, but fate and circumstances won't let her have any of it. Still, she's determined to make the best of her situation. She is nothing if not dauntless. Her little sister, Rebecca, has inherited all the attributes any young woman hopes for: looks, popularity, and the hearts of men. Everything Annie was denied. So, Annie has every reason to be jealous of her sister, but an early childhood incident instead causes her to feel responsible for Rebecca. Even when she doesn't want to be. When tragedy strikes, more than once, Annie and Rebecca take what comes, each in their own way. The bond is always there but not in the way either of them imagined. Love and hate, life and death, as it turns out, might just be different faces of the same coin.