TEA BY THE SEA is a literary novel, a story of a family uniting and unraveling told seamlessly and with smart, clear prose. From Brooklyn to Jamaica, TEA BY THE SEA traces Plum Valentine’s circuitous route to find her daughter and 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. Instead, Plum finds herself locked in his church with her daughter and by the time it’s all over, Plum is the one in the back seat of a police car facing charges.

TEA BY THE SEA is a poignant, multilayer story, that is beautifully written and touches on so many important and relevant issues including immigration, family secrets, mother-daughter relationships, parental kidnapping, betrayal and motherhood.

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About the Author

Jamaican-born Donna Hemans is the author of the novel River Woman, winner of the 2003-4 Towson University Prize for Literature. TEA BY THE SEA, for which she won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature, is her second novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Witness, and the anthology Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad, among others. She received her undergraduate degree from Fordham University and an MFA from American University. She lives in Maryland, and is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, D.C.