Painting the light : a novel
(Book)

"In her first life, Ida Russell had been a painter. Five years ago, she had confidently walked the halls of Boston's most renowned Museum School, enrolling in art courses that were once deemed "unthinkable" for women, and showing a budding talent for watercolors. But no more. Ida Russell is now Ida Pease, resident of a seaside farm on Vineyard Haven, and wife to Ezra, a once-charming man who has become an inattentive and unreliable husband. Ezra runs a salvage company in town with his business partner, Mose Barstow, but he much prefers their nightly card games at a local pub to work filling haystacks and tending sheep on the farm at home-duties that have fallen to Ida and their farmhand, Lem. Ida, meanwhile, has left her love for painting behind. It comes as no surprise to Ida when Ezra is hours late for Thanksgiving dinner, only to leave abruptly for a supposedly urgent business trip to Boston. But then something unfathomable happens: a storm strikes, and the ship carrying Ezra and Mose sinks. In the wake of this tragedy, Ida must settle the affairs of Ezra's estate, a task that brings her to a familiar face from her past-Henry Barstow, Mose's brother and executor. As she joins Henry in sifting through the remnants of her husband's life and work, contemplating the blank canvas her life has become, Ida must learn to separate truth from lies and what matters from what doesn't" -- Front jacket flap.