By Michelle Beckwith
“The Shared Life of Egan and Lucian” by Rose Smith
In my search for a title in the romance genre to feature, this brand-new release came across my desk. It is far from the romantic comedy I initially considered; instead, it’s a love triangle and a love letter, eloquently addressed to the Maine coastline.
The debut novel features Shep’s Island, a fictional setting connected by ferry to Portland, Maine. Home to a young family: parents Ian and Sheila and identical twin sons Egan and Lucian, the island and the surrounding environment excel in their roles as metaphors.
The boys are remarkably similar in looks but different in almost every other way, and as they develop and nurture their passions (art and baseball, respectively), they find themselves leaving and returning to home base. One of my favorite respites in my reading experience was a brief and pivotal “armchair travel” section, setting an ideal cadence to the story. On an adventure to Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lucian meets Lea, an artist from New Mexico, and when she eventually visits his Maine home, secrets are revealed, and the past catches up with almost every character.
“Seasons were brutal, seasons were mild. The edges of the island shrank back from the weather, and then expanded like a breath.”
Many other forms of love interject themselves into the complex family web and leave me with the enduring question: “How does one define the concept of home?” Here, the ebb and flow of the tides themselves echo the journey of an extended family and how they will or won’t navigate human nature: its strengths and weaknesses.
Highlighting the honesty and deep earnestness of Lucian and Egan’s relationship, Ms. Smith’s depiction of the dynamic is subtle and breathtaking. My own family has twins in the mix, and this author gets it right. This story of hellos, goodbyes, heartbreak, and forgiveness is worthy of stellar early reviews and makes a perfect fall read.
