WATERWOMAN, by Lenore Hart.

Picked this hardback up at a library book sale last year and finally read it. It's a quick read at just over 200 pages, and Hart is a decent writer. I found the first half of the book better than the second. In Annie Revels, Hart gives us a tough, no-nonsense young island woman who takes up the work of her oysterman/fisherman father after he dies at sea off Virginia's Eastern Shore in 1920. She takes it upon herself to provide for her demented mother and beautiful younger sister, Rebecca. Then Annie meets Nathan, a handsome WWI veteran, who initiates her in the delights of sex. And the story then turns into a sad love triangle, and Annie no longer seems quite so unique, and Nathan and Becca don't come off looking so hot either. Tragic ending, ho-hum. But to be fair, Lenore Hart is a very good writer who can tell a decent story. Still ... Ah, well. Yeah, I kinda lost interest toward the end, but it was okay, and women will no doubt love this book. ( )

This is pretty much an atmospheric book, one you read for the setting more than the plot. It’s 1920 and Annie Revels’s father has just died, leaving her alone with her beautiful younger sister and ailing mother. They live on a small island off the shore of Virginia where their father made their living as a waterman: harvesting and selling oysters and crabs. It’s a hard life, but one Annie takes to fairly quickly, donning her father’s old clothes and doing everything herself. When she meets a man who sees her as an attractive woman for the first time in her life, everything changes. Not a whole lot happens, really. It’s kind of a sad tale, but not really because I never formed any real attachment to the characters. My personal fascination with the first two decades of the 20th century was mostly what kept me interested, as the descriptions of that kind of life at the time were quite detailed. In the end, I’d count this book as one that passed the time, but not one I’ll remember in a year. ( )

It took a few chapters for me to start enjoying this book, but as I read, it was pretty good. ( )

I liked that Annie is strong enough to do something she wants despite the taboos against it. The tragedy of the story felt overdone, like it was too much to believe. ( )