HERON COVE

“We can’t change what went before, but we can choose what to make of it.” Wise words for Sage when her mother sends her off for the summer to stay with two retired aunts in the hamlet of Heron Cove, Maine while she flits off to an herb institute. Great-aunts Bea and Addie provide love and caring that fill the family void created by parental and grandparental rifts. As Sage tries to unkink the knots in her family ties, she grieves for the dead father that she never knew, worries her mother won’t return for her and questions why Mama distances herself from all her relatives. A similar theme and setting in recent books, here the family focus parlays the discovery of connections in the past to enlightenment of the present, as Sage realizes that you don’t have to give up one home to claim another. Details of village life, realistic emotions, imperfect parents and the lovable aunts offset a slightly pat ending and quietly reinforce the need to belong. (Fiction. 9-12)