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Eva and Henry, A Cape Cod Marriage makes the perfect gift for all your friends who love Wellfleet. The novel, written by Irene Paine, describes life in South Wellfleet in the 1880s and won the Independent Publishers 2011 Silver Award for Best Regional Fiction for the North-East. The heroine is the author’s great grandaunt, an actual person who lived and died in the place she loved the best, Paine Hollow. Eva Paine marries her neighbor, a second cousin and sea captain. Irene did considerable research and often seems to channel Eva as she goes about daily chores.

I loved the details, like, for instance, pond ice being used to cool drinks in summer, buggies, not automobiles, being the main means of transportation, the dust kicked up by the horses back when Cape roads were all dirt, the punk sticks used in summer against mosquitoes. A sea captain’s life was not an easy one with Blackfish Harbor shoaling up. The brave souls who inhabited the Outer Cape lived by the seasons back then, too, and observed the beginnings of the tourist invasion not without apprehension. Little did they realize real estate values would sky-rocket, denying home ownership to some of their descendents. If you like being transported back in time, Eva and Henry is the novel for you.

Here’s a short excerpt: “If these folks only knew of the number of terrible shipwrecks that have caused loss of life through the dangerous winter months, they might be a bit more somber in the presence of the mighty Atlantic. To many residents, the ocean beach is still considered a graveyard. We’ve observed the horror of shipwreck so many times. When I was a tiny girl, before the railroad brought the summer visitors, no children played at the backshore as it was considered disrespectful to the dead.”

Find information on buying/ordering this book here.