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	Foundry Claire Harris
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English
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Fiction & Related items

SHORECLIFF

Ursula DeYoung

A winning debut novel about a 1920s New England family and the secrets revealed when they reunite over one long summer.

Spending the summer in an old house on the Maine coast in the 1920s with eleven older cousins and a gaggle of aunts and uncles, Richard watches the family he adores disintegrate into a tangle of lust, jealousy, and betrayal. At first only an avid spectator, he soon finds himself drawn into the confusion, battling with his first experience of sexual attraction and forced to cover for his relatives in their romantic and rebellious intrigues.
When he discovers a trail of secrets concerning his two oldest cousins, his heroic Uncle Kurt, and clandestine trips away from Shorecliff, he must make a decision that transforms the family. His impulsive act of revelation ends in a horrific accident, the family's faith in each other destroyed, and Richard himself imprisoned in a lifetime of guilt. With her impeccable prose and utterly captivating sense of place and era, DeYoung examines the bonds of loyalty and rivalry that can knit a family together and simultaneously drive it apart.

SHORECLIFF's intimate and provocative focus is reminiscent of Atonement by Ian McEwan, with the vivid timelessness of current bestseller The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, and the dreamy isolation, classic feel, and lingering spell of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

Ursula DeYoung won Harvard's Edward Eager Prize for short fiction in 2003 as an undergraduate. In 2009, she received her Ph.D. in History from Oxford, and in March 2011 Palgrave Macmillan published her first book, a non-fiction study of nineteenth-century physicist John Tyndall entitled A Vision of Modern Science: John Tyndall and the Role of the Scientist in Victorian Culture.

Available products
Book Published 2013-07-01 by Little Brown
Book Published 2013-07-01 by Little Brown

Comments

Ursula DeYoung's divine first novel, Shorecliff, gives readers a vivid picture of what happens when a sprawling family spends time in close quarters. Although set nearly a century ago on a picturesque Maine estate, DeYoung's novel is immediate and familiar, and her character development is nothing short of brilliant. A delicious summer read.

DeYoung keeps readers hanging, wondering which family member’s shocking revelation will be unveiled next. An explosive debut.

Everything’s in place for a gripping and magical read. Happily, Ursula DeYoung delivers on the premise marvelously….not surprisingly, because of its undercurrent of sin and sinning, this excellent novel about cousins interacting continues a genre that has New England antecedents. The earliest perhaps being Louisa May Alcott’s high minded 1875 ‘8 Cousins or The Aunt Hill’ [which], like Shorecliff, rides on the tide of an awakening feminism….DeYoung writes with an easy grace.

I was swept away by Shorecliff from its very first page, captivated by the Hatfields as they teeter between beauty and loss of innocence in one dreamlike summer. DeYoung is a master of character in this affecting novel, and her writing glitters with clarity, confidence, and depth, all the way to the book’s stunning ending. A debut of a wonderful new literary voice.

SHORECLIFF is a classic coming-of-age story… Part A SEPARATE PEACE, part I CAPTURE THE CASTLE, it’s the story of a momentous summer when illusions are dashed, family ties are tested, and secrets come spilling out. DeYoung effectively demonstrates how certain events, no matter how big or small, can imprint the rest of our lives forever.

Shorecliff reads like the work of a seasoned veteran of the form, not a debut novelist. DeYoung's vivid evocation of a summer home in Maine along with the enthralling, flawed members of the extended Hatfield clan held me captive from the very first page to the electrifying conclusion.

This exceptional novel is reminiscent of the grand family classics of the nineteenth century, wherein characters drive the plot. Ursula DeYoung manages a large cast—every one of them vital and unique—with deft timing. Shorecliff is both a coming-of-age story and a cautionary tale about the dangers of eaves-dropping and gossip. With exquisite skill, the author reveals calamitous events, enticing the reader with tidbits about what is to come. I look forward to future novels from this gifted author.

Much like the decade it captures — the 1920s — Shorecliff is a whimsical, captivating read that's tinged with nostalgia from the first page. Both the vivid characters and the alluring setting remained with me far after I closed the novel. Ursula also did a lenghty interview with them.

Oxford Ph.D. DeYoung’s debut novel about an extended family’s summer at the Maine shore in 1928 captures the mood and morals of a bygone era…” engrossing” and “exquisite.

[SHORECLIFF is] high in integrity....It’s true to itself, this novel, and to the experience of its young protagonist....DeYoung succeeds in reminding us of how it felt to be young, when the realization that adults had pasts and lives independent of their role as masters and caregivers came as a shock, and overheard conversations among teenage cousins were a gateway to wisdom.