Held by the Sea

Jane Darke loves Cornwall. It is where she raised her family with the acclaimed Cornish writer Nick Darke. The family have lived for generations on Porthcothan beach and kept the traditions of beachcombing, lobster fishing and preservation of coastal ecology alive. After Nick's death Jane struggled with her grief, she had defined herself as a wife and mother and now she had to rediscover who she had been before her marriage and embrace the new possibilities of the life ahead of her. After Nick's death Jane had to find answers to the conflicting emotions of her grief - despair, confusion, panic and gratitude - and found them in what she had always shared with her husband (a love of Cornwall, the sea and a new focus to her work as an artist). Jane began to find her own place and identity in Cornwall. This is a book about intimacy, life with a partner and living within the environment around you, and the healing power of both; as well as a celebration of how we are shaped by the geography of the sea as much as the tides of a marriage.