Island Passage

Forty-year-old Francine Durrett discovers the receipts for jewelry and a room at the Blue Moon Motel at the bottom of her husband s underwear drawer. She thinks he s amazingly stupid. Or . . . he wanted to get caught. Devastated by her husband s infidelity, Francine flees her upscale suburban home with her angry fifteen-year-old daughter and returns to the Lake Erie island of Middle Bass, where she spent childhood summers with her best friend, Claudia Angelo. Francine hopes to heal a broken heart, re-connect with her daughter, and attempt to rediscover the simple, uncomplicated love she had known as a child. Not long after Francine s return to Middle Bass, Claudia arrives unannounced on the doorstep of the island house. Francine has not seen her friend for over five years. Claudia is rich, brash and stunningly beautiful, but unlike Francine, her childhood memories recall nothing but lies, poverty and neglect. For Claudia, the subject of her past is a dead issue. She comes to the island to repay a long-standing debt, rooted in deception. Alan Bromsley grew up on the island, a free-spirited boy who once challenged the world and had little fear of any consequence. He now operates a small island flight service. No stranger to grief, Alan is a loner, a man at war with himself. In this tender-hearted story, Alan is confronted by the two women he once loved and lost twenty years ago. Island Passage brings to life the reuniting of three estranged friends, torn apart by unforeseen circumstances, and then brought together in a tragedy that inadvertently unravels an old secret a secret that could ultimately destroy them all.