Tea by the Sea

A baby taken from her mother at birth, an Episcopal priest with a daughter whose face he cannot bear to see, a mother weary of searching for her lost child: Tea by the Sea is their story—that of a family uniting and unraveling. To find the daughter taken from her, Plum Valentine must find the child’s father who walked out of a hospital with the day-old baby girl without explanation. Seventeen years later, weary of her unfruitful search, Plum sees an article in a community newspaper with a photo of the man for whom she has spent half her life searching. He has become an Episcopal priest. Her plan: confront him and walk away with the daughter he took from her. From Brooklyn to the island of Jamaica, Tea by the Sea traces Plum’s circuitous route to finding her daughter and how Plum’s and the priest’s love came apart.

NOW AVAILABLE – TEA BY THE SEA READING GUIDE

ADVANCE PRAISE

“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

Thank you to the following blogs for featuring Donna Heman’s Tea by the Sea!

A photograph of a white sand beach with a woman standing on the left covering herself with a large piece of fabric and blue script towards the right that reads Tea by the Sea a Novel by Donna Hemans.

Donna Hemans ( Author Website )

Publication Date: June 9, 2020

Genre/Imprint: Fiction, Red Hen Press

$16.95 Tradepaper

Shop: Red Hen, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble

ISBN: 978-1-59709-845-8

News

TEA BY THE SEA listed on Electric Lit!

My mom says every mother needs a daughter. It’s not that she doesn’t love and appreciate her two sons. My middle brother knows best how to comfort her in times […]

TEA BY THE SEA featured in Fordham Magazine!

In her long-awaited second novel, Donna Hemans, the author of River Woman (2002), weaves a compelling tale of longing—to belong, to find family and a sense of home, to be fulfilled, and […]

Read Donna Hemans’ essay on Ploughshares!

The operator-assisted collect call comes on a July morning in 1987. It’s still early, before 9 a.m., and except for the telephone ringing, the house is quiet, my younger sister […]

2020 Great Group Reads Selections

Women’s National Book Association features TEA BY THE SEA: The 2020 Great Group Reads selections have been chosen! This year’s list features books from a wide-range of styles and from […]

5 Books You May Have Missed in June

Each month I comb through hundreds of titles to choose the five I list here, and each month I come up with 30 to 50 that are worthy of consideration. […]

Blog Tour: Tea by the Sea

Thank you to the following blogs for featuring Donna Heman’s Tea by the Sea! The Livre Café Jessica Belmont Fiction Matters Everyday I Write the Book Never Without A Book […]

TBLR: Importing Color

During the ongoing shelter-in-place regime, I should be reading fiction and transporting myself to other worlds that might afford me a semblance of normality or familiarity. But I don’t seem […]

Repeating Islands: Donna Hemans

Donna Heman’s forthcoming novel Tea by the Sea is now available for pre-ordering. It will be released on June 9, 2020 (Red Hen Press). Marlon James (author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf) writes: […]

Poets & Writers: Tea by the Sea

“Eight years of active searching had come to this: an abandoned house, an outdoor stove, and a doll, signs of a former life but necessarily his and hers.” In this […]

NY Post: The best books of the week

Tea by the SeaDonna Hemans (fiction, Red Hen Press)Plum Valentine’s daughter was taken from her the day after the baby was born, snatched, without explanation, by the girl’s father. Seventeen […]

The Rumpus: An Exploration of Belonging

Jamaica-born writer Donna Hemans has been said to hear “life sung by a chorus, not a single voice.” Her plots are as intense as thrillers yet as resonant as poetry, and the lyricism and […]

Reviews

Midwest Book Review: Tea by the Sea

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 that is especially and unreservedly […]

Donna Hemans, “Tea by the Sea” Review

A new father walks out of the hospital with his day-old baby while the mother recuperates from giving birth. He tells a series of lies and moves houses or countries […]

Blog Tour: Tea by the Sea

Thank you to the following blogs for featuring Donna Heman’s Tea by the Sea! The Livre Café Jessica Belmont Fiction Matters Everyday I Write the Book Never Without A Book […]

KIRKUS: Tea by the Sea

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 […]