Waters on a Starry Night — Elisabeth Ogilvie

When Thora and Lyle Ritchie married - at sixteen and seventeen - they knew just what they were doing. They were very much in love and wanted to shelter each other from a nasty world. They married and grew up; but in growing up they grew apart.

As Elisabeth Ogilvie begins her story, Thora and Lyle have been married thirteen years. The hardship and sacrifice of their lives is starting to tell. They are no longer the world to each other. And when the beautiful, wealthy Vivian Perth returns to the cove for the summer, the Ritchies' discontent becomes a searing misery that almost wrecks their lives.

Miss Ogilvie tells her story wtih a profound understanding of the moods and temper of marriage. Thora and Lyle are very real, very comprehensible people. Their differences are exactly those that strain most happy marriages. And the rugged, isolated, tempest-torn Maine coast against which the novel is set provides a vibrant counterpoint to the story.