Connie Kallback

Chasing the Blue Boat

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Nine-year-old Dana Foster keeps up with her older brother Luke in forbidden adventures even if it means teetering on a dangerous ledge or swimming in the town's goldish pond. Her life shatters when an accident takes his life. Dad turns from God and also blames the tragedy on Mom for letting Luke go with friends instead of mowing the lawn. Trying to patch their lives together, Mom convinces Dad to take them on a family vacation to Cape Cod, but Dad sinks deeper into himself. The textile mill he manages has been sending him on temporary assignments to a southern mill and soon offers him a transfer there. Dana never stops missing Luke and recalls their adventures together, including his treasured blue sailboat's first voyage after a flash flood along the street curb where it swooped down a storm drain. Reminiscing in Luke's room months later, she discovers the battered boat. Before Dad leaves, she asks him to repair it with her, hoping he'll stay to renew the memory of his son. Her parents' divorce forces Dana to face a second loss when her father moves to Western North Carolina alone, taking the boat with him. The lives of Dana and her mother change in many ways while they manage on their own. Her mother, who creates pottery at home to sell in galleries, takes an office job with an attorney from church. Two years later, Dana flies to Charlotte to meet Dad and his new wife Kaye for a vacation in Boone. At the end of their week together, Kaye makes a surprise announcement that she's expecting a baby. Upon Dana's return home, Mom shares her plans for a consignment shop to sell her own and other artists' work. With help from her boss, the attorney who has become more than a friend, she and Dana refurbish a rustic hop on Main Street. Anticipating her teen years, Dana spends the next summer with Dad and Kaye in Laurelsville, North Carolina. She baby sits there for baby JJ and does inside and outside jobs while her friends back home enjoy sleepovers and bike rides. Subtle conflicts unfold between stepmother and stepdaughter. Dana hopes to take home the geodes she digs up in the yard for souvenirs, but Kaye confiscates them for a future collection for JJ. On seeing Dana's poison ivy rash, Kaye wants to send her home, argues with Dad and stomps out, taking JJ to visit a friend for the day. Dana stays home alone to do yard work. In the shed hides the remnant of the sailboat, repaired but not enough to suit her. In her anger, she takes it to a hidden creek to set it free but slips on mossy rocks and falls in. Floating happily down the creek and imagining another adventure with Luke, she hears the din of a raging tributary that joins the creek. She fights for her life. Dana is missing when Dad and Kaye return for dinner. Dad makes a frantic call to police and to Dana's mother in New York. The unlikely trio of parents joins search-and-rescue teams to comb through nearby mountains, hoping to find their only daughter alive.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Booklocker.com
• Seitenzahl: 258
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. Dezember 2022
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 379g
• ISBN-13: 9781958878163
• ISBN-10: 1958878162
• Artikelnr.: 67290088

Autorenporträt

Connie Kallback transitioned from teaching English to publishing with CCMI/McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall and CPP, Inc in positions from acquisitions to managing editor. Her writing, while teaching, was published in a wide range of magazines, and her recent creative nonfiction, in journals. She lives in South Carolina with her husband.