This was a dark family saga that had turns I did not see coming. While I didn't love or relate to any of the characters, I don't think you necessarily need to to enjoy a book. It was well written and I was interested in the story till the end.

I am one of 3 sisters. I have a daughter with the same name as one of the characters. This book called to me, and I got so much more than I expected. Beautifully written, it will pull you in from the beginning. What happens in our childhood will affect the rest of our life.

Three sisters experience a traumatic, life altering event early in their life. They move on as best they can…until life brings them all to a point in their lives that changes are forced on them. A Father doing the best he can, but not really knowing how to parent. Alex and Colleen growing up much too fast, mothering Riley and trying to find their own way with memories haunting them. Riley, the baby, unable to overcome what happened to her at an early age and what she is doing to herself. Each come to a point in their life where change needs to be made regarding marriage, job decisions and lifestyle.

This book deals with heavy subjects…addiction, mental health, marriage, parenting. It deals with family, love and loss. Don’t let the darkness of the subject matter put you off. It’s a beautiful story of family and coming together. Raw, honest, real….this story will rip your heart out and put it back together. I especially enjoyed the mysterious visitations. Grief is brutal and shapes our life.. past, present and future. I thought the writer did an excellent job of portraying the internal struggle of an addict and humanizing that struggle. The cover art was a perfect portrayal of this book. I look forward to this authors next book!

Thanks to Ms. deVeer, Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.

Alex, Colleen, and Riley were children when their mother committed suicide- Alex found her. They made a pact to stick together but life intervened and they went their separate ways into separate worlds, all carrying the burden of what happened. Now, Colleen has hired a private detective to look for Riley, who has disappeared. But she's turned up at Alex's door on stormy night. And then she disappears again. This is an unusual novel about sisters who have been wounded. No spoilers about Riley. Know that everything is not what it seems- from Colleen's happy life to Alex's thoughts. It's atmospheric- deVeer has captured conditions of storm on the coast- and even creepy in spots. If it's slow in spots (and it is) hang on for the characters, who are well drawn. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

A very well-written family saga full of tragedy and heart-break. It feels moody in all the best ways and really conveys the setting so well. It's heavy but not depressing and an impressive debut novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Three sisters. Bereaved and traumatised by their mother’s suicide when they were just children, the experience united them in a close bond that is put to the test when the youngest, Riley, disappears off the radar and they are desperate to find her. Now grown up, they each have their own demons to struggle with as they try to make sense of their early loss. I found it a compelling, insightful and very well-written exploration of sibling love and loyalty. The introduction of a supernatural element didn’t sit comfortably with me in a novel which is very much grounded on the harsh realities of adult life, but I felt the author incorporated it seamlessly into the narrative and I managed to accept it. It’s a haunting – literally – tale about the bonds that bind sisters and which can help them navigate an often difficult and painful world. A really absorbing read.

Compelling plot and family dynamic, but the writing was of the "tell" not "show" variety and so it was tough to get through.

A beautifully, wonderful well written and poignant book about three sisters coping with the profound effect their mother’s suicide!.
This story is told in a first person perspective alternating between the three of the sister's.... Alex, Colleen and Riley.
I loved how real and raw this book was! Simply an amazing book!
This was an incredible story of what can happen to those left behind after a suicide!

I can't thank NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing & Author for giving me the chance to read and review this compelling advanced ebook!

I enjoy a good sister novel and this book delivered big time for me. We meet and follow three distinct young women as they navigate growing up with the trauma of their childhood always present. This book shows the strength of those sisterly bonds but also the limits. Motherhood, depression and other life trials must ultimately be faced alone but it does help to have a sister to share it all with. There is a wonderful sense of place throughout with coastal northeastern Massachusetts always in the background with its changeable weather as the setting for the haunting. The writing is excellent, even a bit poetic at times. I will read more from this author who is new to me. This is mostly a character driven novel and at times I found the introspection repetitive and annoying as if the author didn’t appreciate the reader’s memory for detail but it is earns solid four stars for an enjoyable satisfying read with a bit of suspense and drama thrown in. - Mary

A remarkably assured debut from author Elizabeth de Veer, The Ocean in Winter is the family-centered narrative of three sisters and their various attempts to cope in their adult lives after the suicide of their mother during their childhood. Alternating point of view chapters between the three show each in turmoil in different ways as they attempt to make sense of their lives and find answers as to what pushed their mother to take her own life. This is an honest and lyrical exploration of mental health, legacy, and the obligations of family that is at turns poignant and incisive. The main complaint I had personally was that certain sections seemed a bit overlong, leading to some plot points that were introduced and not entirely resolved by the end. However, this doesn't detract too much from the overall experience, and empathetic readers will find plenty to enjoy here.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to
Blackstone Publishing**

I absolutely loved this book-the idea of surviving the early death of your only parent, the impact it has on the sibling relationships and your own mental well being is explored thoroughly and wonderfully in this story.

I don’t like to give bad reviews but this book was just not for me. I failed to care about any of the characters and when about 50% in, the soap opera storyline went down a bad road with drugs and sex. I shut the book and said, nope, done.
I sometimes feel the descriptions of the book is of a completely different one. I didn’t find any tenderness, wise, magical or beautiful scenes. The only thing I did find interesting was Alex’s life in India. I’m sure others may enjoy this story but I just found it shallow, filled with drama and like a soap opera.
I want to thank Blackstone Publishing with NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read an ARC. Comes in with 2 stars.

This is a great book that tells the story of three sisters whose mother commits suicide and we see how that event affects them differently.

Alex is a dedicated nurse who planned to escape to India. Colleen stayed near their hometown in Massachusetts and threw herself into being a wife and mother. Alex, literally a baby when her mother died, is a model living in NYC. Unfortunately, she also has a drug problem.

Chapters are told by different sisters. The author’s writing style really pulls you into their lives with enough detail to make it interesting but not overdone.

The ending was a bit of a surprise with a nice twist. Awesome story, well told!!!

This is a story of three sisters, whose mother committed suicide when they were young, leaving them with a father who was too emotionally detached to offer them help to deal with the trauma.
Each sister goes their own way when they are grown, living completely different lives, each one unique and unlike each other.
The story is told from the three different perspectives of each sister. Though close when they were growing up, they grow apart in adulthood, each living completely different lives until years later they meet and try to reconcile their relationships and deal with the trauma that has been at the forefront of their lives for years.
This is a sad story, but it is beautifully written. It is a story about love, loss, and suffering, and also about how tragedy impacts our lives not only when it occurs, but for long after. It is a story about sisterhood and repairing broken relationships.
I enjoyed reading this story, it is very detailed, the writer does a great job of showing each sisters' distinct individual personality, bringing them to life.
A wonderful piece of literary fiction, I give 4 stars and recommend this novel strongly. It is scheduled to publish July 6, 2021, so don't miss it.
Thank you to Blackstone publishing and Net Galley for the free ARC e-copy of this novel, I am giving my honest review in return.

This novel follows three sisters, whose mother suicided when they were young. As adults they are each dealing with this trauma in their own way, and are uniquely affected by it.

I liked the concept of this novel, exploring longterm grief and trauma and how ideas from childhood spill over into adulthood. However, overall I found these themes to be let down by the execution. The characters were all fairly one-dimensional, and I found a lot of their dialogue to be quite forced and stagey. I found this to be a big letdown in a novel tacking such interesting themes. This novel is being marketed as literary fiction, but I would definitely describe it as contemporary, not lit fic.

Thanks to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for an ARC. The Ocean in Winter is out on 6 July 2021.

The Emery sisters will forever live in my soul. Novels like this one come once in a lifetime, and boy am I glad I’m here to bear witness.

Eleven-year old, Alex, finds her mother in a bathtub unresponsive. Even though she’s the eldest of the three sisters, she wanted to fall apart, but held it together to summon help for their mother. Unfortunately, Alex, Colleen and Riley were motherless. Their mother had committed the ultimate sin of taking her own life. What kind of mother would do something so heinous? What did her husband and children do to make her leave her family behind permanently? This is what Alex carried with her throughout her life, as did her sisters.

Riley, the youngest of them, was a fashion model living in New York and doing whatever her carefree life afforded her. Her family hadn’t heard from her in years. When the girls were younger, they made a pact when their mother killed herself. They would always stay close. Hmm, that’s nice in theory, but you try carrying it out when life begins to happen. Colleen, the middle child, has the perfect life. She’s married to a successful lawyer, has two great kids and a great house and a great marriage. But, was her life as perfect as she thought?

Colleen was worried. She hadn’t seen her baby sister in years nor had she spoken to her. She couldn’t understand why Riley wasn’t returning her calls or emails? She decides to take a trip to New York to go in search of her. Once she arrives, she soon discovers her sister is no longer living in the last known apartment address she had on her. The landlord refused to advise her of Riley’s whereabouts. So, Colleen does the next best thing. She contacts a private investigator.

Once the ink is dried and the money has exchanged hands, Nate, the P.I. sets out to find Riley, and he’s successful. When he reports back to Colleen that he’s found her sister, of course, she’s elated with the news. While Colleen was paying for private dicks to find her sister, she had no idea that Riley showed up at Alex’s doorstep. There was no way for her to have known this fact. Alex was so thrilled to have her baby sister back. There was so much for them to catch up on. Oh, there's only one problem—and that, readers, is where our story skyrockets!

This story unfolded like a poet’s words in motion. Each of the sisters’ stories were the fabric sewn together to make up the material of the plot. The Emery sisters were impacted by one vicious and selfish act—the suicide of their mother. Each of them was forced to carry a piece of their mother’s act that comforted them like a warm winter’s coat. de Veer did an amazing job in outlining the backstory leading you up to what these sisters endure. All I can say is have the tissue box handy because I cried like a baby in several sections of the book. You will see yourselves in these sisters’ lives. They will resonate so strongly with many of your souls. I was misty eyed a great deal throughout the story.

3.5 STARS. It is hard to believe that this is a debut novel. It is very well written. This author writes descriptions beautifully. In fact, it is the descriptions, sentence structures, and word usage during the prologue that first pulled me in. This novel deals with some very heavy topics. It is a book about family and personal drama and tragedies, addiction, and suicide. The pacing is a little slow for my liking and the fact that this book alternates three different POVs (one for each of the three sisters) I often felt that just as I was starting to get in to one storyline I would be yanked out and tossed into another. But, especially toward the end, I was hooked and wanted to keep reading to see how it ended.

Thank you NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley #TheOceaninWinter

Everyone is set adrift with the death of a family member, but if that person was your mother or your wife and she committed suicide, it can set your life going in directions that you never dreamed of.

Such is the fate of the three sisters, Alex, Colleen, and Riley. All three have grown to womanhood without the benefit of their artistic mother. Their father did his best, but he tended to be reclusive and withdrawn, never really sharing or actually knowing his wife's past. And that's where the mystery comes to play. Each of the girls have been hit with emotional, heart breaking times that they need to come to terms with, and why they ask? Why did their beautiful artistic mother kill herself in the family bathtub, leaving her oldest daughter to find her? Were these girls not good enough for her mother to love and not leave?

Alex, the oldest, left at the tender age of eleven, is destined to mother her younger sisters. Grown to womanhood, she became an ER nurse but recently quit her job, after finding out some devastating news about her health. Traveling in India, looking to get lost or maybe find that elusive peace, she learns she has inherited a house near the ocean, from a woman she met and struck up an acquaintance with on a bus. Forced to return home, to deal with this development, she gets in touch with her sister, Colleen, who is starting down the painful path to divorce. Always, the sister who seemed to have it all, the two children, a successful husband, and a gorgeous home, she knows in her heart that this was inevitable but the hurt is only compounded when her home suffers a terrible fire.

Then there is the youngest sister, Riley, beautiful, once being a successful runway model. Her life is in shambles as she travels the dark road of drug and alcohol addiction, a very dark road indeed where she has cut herself off from her sisters and travels the roadway to destruction alone.

The house Alex inherits is pretty ramshackle but within its walls, Alex hears things, voices and then footsteps that add a sense of the unknown. Yet, she attributes it to other earthly things. When a terrible storm ravages the East Coast, Alex once again is alerted to the strange goings on in her home. Suddenly, Alex hears a knock on her door. Opening it to Riley, Alex is taken with a million questions. How did Riley know where she lived, how did she arrive in the midst of a storm? They speak and Riley shares with Alex a terrible secret, but questions surge as Riley leaves asking Alex the final question of "If she could would she would save a child?"

This tale of love, loss, grief, and connections was one that could shatter your heartstrings. It was saga of family turmoil that hinted on a number of occasions of the supernatural, a world of spirits that try to alert one to danger, the past, and the way forward.

Although somewhat lengthy, I enjoyed this story and hope this new author, Elizabeth de Veer, continues to write as there was much poignancy to her words.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of this story due out July 6, 2021.

Given the subject matter of this book, I can't really say I 'enjoyed' it but I do think it's well-written and structured and an important book to read.

Three sisters, Alex, Colleen and Riley tell their stories in alternate chapters. Despite being adults in their 30s, they are all still struggling with the grief and mystery of their mother's suicide when Alex, the eldest, was just 11 years old. Each has handled it in different ways given that suicide remains a largely unspoken event filled with guilt, shame and regret by those who are left behind. The author approaches this topic with compassion and honesty and through the narrative insists that the subject of suicide must be brought out from the shadows, confronted and talked about. The way the narrative is resolved is also totally in keeping with the tone of this story so that the reader feels as if they have known these three women intimately.

The narrative explodes all those myths that still surround suicide: that the person who suicides is selfish, emotionally manipulative or melodramatic. It shows the devastating and inter-generational effects of suicide without blaming the person who feels they have no other option to escape their pain. Suicide is a major public health problem in many countries, particularly amongst indigenous communities in first world countries. Despite some progress now being made in dealing with depression as a society, we are still making little impact on suicide rates because, as De Veer illustrates so well in this novel, it is still not talked about publicly. In educating people about suicide from all sides of the equation in a relatable way, this novel is a must-read.

“The Ocean in Winter” by Elizabeth de Veer is a captivating family drama set in a seaside town in Massachusetts about three sisters Alex, Colleen and Riley, struggling to survive despite the lingering effects of childhood trauma and present-day challenges.

The book begins 25 years after their mother’s suicide and I really enjoyed that each chapter was dedicated to one sister and written in first person, giving the reader profound insight into their lives, relationships with each other, and how they are still dealing with the tragedy from their childhood. Jumping from sister to sister also helped to carry the story along, although this structure did make the book a bit repetitive at times. I enjoyed Riley’s story the most, perhaps because she was the most obviously affected by their mother’s suicide and her life ended up so differently from her the other sisters.

Overall, I thought the writing and story could have been a bit tighter—I thought there were too many unnecessary details and too many side storylines—but the book’s concept was intriguing, the character well-developed, and the setting beautifully described. I would recommend this book for fans of “The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett, “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens, and “The Guest Book” by Sarah Blake.

What a heartbreaking read. This is a novel of three sisters growing up after their mother's suicide. Part ghost story, part tragic family rebuilding. There are three narrators, each of the sisters, and the author did an amazing job detailing each of their unique experiences. This novel was deeply touching and felt so real. Being a woman who has lost my mother, I felt like I could connect to their grief processes throughout the book.

At times this was a slow read but it could be that it was so emotionally heavy that it took me longer to process and move forward.

Many thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC copy in exchange for an honest review!