Tea By the Sea is a powder keg of a novel, where secrets and lies explode into truth and consequences, all told with spellbinding, shattering power. Hemans doesn't just fulfill the promise of her debut— she soars past it." —Marlon James, Man Booker Prize Winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
"The forbidden love story of Plum and Lenworth comes alive in this heart-rending novel, Tea by the Sea. Hemans has a stunning ability to give words to that elusive feeling of emptiness, and the longing for redemption is palpable. In Hemans’s deft hands, regrets are explored with precision and compassion so that the reader finds herself unable to turn against even characters who have committed the most wretched betrayals. Tea by the Sea is like the story told in a grandmother’s kitchen with the odors of fried dumplings and saltfish wafting into mouths that are set agape at the heady twists and turns delivered in an urgent and beautiful prose." —Lauren Francis-Sharma, author of ’Til the Well Runs Dry
"Tea by the Sea is an insightful and illuminating prism of a novel, deftly examining familial identity and personal transformation. Hemans turns the kaleidoscope, catching light at different angles, to show us how one person’s act of honor and responsibility can also be an act of unspeakable betrayal." —Carolyn Parkhurst, author of The Dogs of Babel and Harmony
"Tea by the Sea is a well-written novel exploring the themes of agency, love, and loss."—LynnDee Wathen, Booklist
"A deftly crafted and entertaining work of impressive literary nuance, Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans is an extraordinary, original, and inherently fascinating novel."—Midwest Book Review
"Donna Hemans’ second novel, Tea by the Sea, is a moving portrait of identity, belonging, family, immigration, and the power of maternal love." —Alice Stephens, Washington Independent Review of Books
"Her plots are as intense as thrillers yet as resonant as poetry, and the lyricism and emotional honesty of her work has earned her comparisons to Jamaica Kincaid and Edwidge Danticat." —Aimee Liu, The Rumpus
"Tea by the Sea sounds deceptively sweet, but this novel connecting Jamaica to the United States packs a soursop punch." —Bethanne Patrick, Lit Hub's "5 Books You May Have Missed in June"
"In beautiful, wrenching prose, Hemans’ Tea by the Sea tells an unforgettably moving story of family love, identity, and betrayal." —G.P. Gottlieb, author of ’ Whipped and Sipped mystery series.
"Don’t expect a facile morality play: Hemans writes with precision about the most private bacchanals of the heart, the utter vexations of the spirit. Read with a rum-soaked handkerchief."—Shivanee Ramlochan, Caribbean Beat
A Conversation in the Washington Independent Review of Books
An interview with Aimee Liu in The Rumpus
An interview in New York State Writers Institute
Spring 2020 Blog Tour (Reviews, interviews, and more) Week 1 - The Livre Café | 6/1
- Jessica Belmont | 6/2
- Fiction Matters | 6/3
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Week 2 - Book of Cinz | 6/8
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- This Brown Girl Reads | 6/10
- Jennifer Tarheel Reader | 6/11
- Book Reviews and More by Kathy | 6/12
- Girl Who Reads | 6/13
Week 3 - Suzy Approved Book Reviews | 6/14
- Blunt Scissors Book Review | 6/15
- Syllables of Swathi | 6/16
- Collector of Book Boyfriends | 6/17
- Gimme The Scoop Reviews | 6/18
- Audio Killed the Bookmark | 6/19
- Miss Bibliofancy | 6/20
Week 4 - Gail Renatta | 6/21
- Chocolate Covered Pages | 6/22
- Storybook Reviews | 6/23
- Long and Short Reviews | 6/24
- BNJ Reads | 6/25
- What Is That Book About | 6/26
- Eno Books | 6/27
Week 5 - Beth’s Book Nook Blog | 6/28
- Reading Between the Wines Book Club | 6/29
- Amy’s Booket List | 6/30
- Book and Pen In Hand | 7/1
- Bree McIvor | 7/2
- Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More | 7/3
- Karukerament | 7/4
- Suzanne Bhagan | 7/6
06/01/2020
In this second novel from Jamaican American author Hemans (River Woman), set in both Jamaica and Brooklyn, 24-year-old Jamaican high school tutor Lenworth gets a student named Plum Valentine pregnant; he agrees to marry her but then absconds with the baby girl hours after her birth. (This information is no spoiler, as it's revealed in Chapter 1.) Lenworth starts a new life with his daughter on another part of the island, using an assumed name. Though Plum was raised in America, her Jamaican parents parked her in a Jamaican boarding school against her will; after Lenworth disappears with the baby, she returns grief-stricken to Brooklyn and spends years trying to track down her daughter. The narrative is replete with wonderfully evocative descriptions of Jamaica's lush floral beauty, hot climate, and rugged terrain, as well as more sober assessments of its local poverty, but the story is melodramatic when it could have been a more critical take on the Caribbean American immigrant experience. Plot and tone don't quite jibe: Lenworth is presented as a sympathetic character with Plum's best interests in mind, but readers will have difficulty reconciling that portrayal with his despicable behavior. VERDICT A light read, despite the book's serious-sounding themes.—Reba Leiding, emerita, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
2020-03-15
A young mother goes on a quest to track down the father of her child, who abducted their baby daughter shortly after her birth.
When Plum Valentine is in high school in Brooklyn, her immigrant parents plan a seemingly routine visit to their native Jamaica. Once there, however, the parents insist that Plum stay behind, leaving her at a strict boarding school to keep her from getting into trouble. As it turns out, trouble manages to find the pretty 17-year-old anyway. After Lenworth, a 25-year-old chemistry lab assistant, tutors Plum, the two end up having an illicit relationship. As the novel opens, Plum is in the hospital, recovering from having given birth to their daughter, when she discovers that Lenworth has abducted the baby. Plum realizes she has been abandoned yet again. But that pain pales in comparison to the yawning emptiness she experiences at the loss of her child. Traveling back to Brooklyn, Plum tries to set her life back on a path to normalcy. Determined to find her daughter, however, she sets off repeatedly, over the course of more than a decade, to track her ex-lover and their little girl. Hemans delivers a cat-and-mouse chase that brings Plum back to Jamaica over and over again even as she leads a parallel life in the United States. The taut storyline sacrifices character development with the net result that both Plum and Lenworth come across as caricatures, their motivations and desires one-dimensional and murky till the end. Lenworth’s sudden embrace of spirituality as he realizes his profound error of judgment also feels forced. By concentrating mostly on the minutiae of the chase, the narrative misses mining the deeper emotional range it could have achieved had it addressed Plum’s grief with more nuance.
A tightly knit story about a mother’s loss that too often veers into melodrama.
