Five families come together for a summer vacation that will change their lives forever in this moving tale of love, loss, and hope.
The Edwards, the Ames, the Epsteins, the Currans, and the Templetons-five families bound together by the decades-old tradition of spending their August vacation at the idyllic Mount Haven Inn in New Hampshire.
Despite living separate, disparate lives, the summer ritual of reconnecting remains an important yearly fixture for the families, with the inn and its tranquil surroundings offering a welcome safe haven and respite from their struggles-a place to draw comfort from their shared past and memories. But strained relationships, heartache, loss, and devastating secrets all come to a head one climactic summer-a summer that will change their lives forever . . .
Can they start again, or will they lose one another forever?
David and Judith's fragile marriage is threatened by the sudden death of their beloved thirteen-year-old daughter, Melanie. As they struggle to cope with their loss, they confront bewildering challenges. But instead of turning to each other, they find comfort with others. David is drawn to Nancy, a colleague and single mother, and a survivor of her own personal tragedy, while Judith grows close to Jeffrey, a recently widowed physician whom she meets through her volunteer work at a thrift shop, itself the scene of multiple daily dramas. As their grief drives them further apart, does their future lie together 'after Melanie,' or are they destined to lose one another for ever?
As a child growing up in 1920s Paris, Ida Chagall copes with her father Marc Chagall's brilliant artistic mind, overbearing ego, and the tight leash he keeps on her. But as Ida blossoms into a young woman, she begins to glimpse freedom and opportunities for herself. When she falls in love for the first time, her father paints "The Bridal Chair" as her wedding present, a symbol of his anger that pierces Ida to the heart. Against a backdrop of the Nazi invasion of France, Ida fights for her own survival as an independent young woman while nurturing the dark creative genius of her parents.
