The Hearth and Eagle

[1][2] Set primarily in the old New England fishing village of Marblehead, Massachusetts, the story centers on strong-willed, passionate Hesper Honeywood and her search for love and fulfillment at a time when women had few options and the stormy Atlantic often claimed the lives of poor fishermen.

As she enters adolescence, Hesper idolizes Johnny Peach, a neighbor boy who is cheerful, good-natured, and quietly protective of the oddly excitable red-head.

Not long after the war is over, Hesper, by now a beautiful and voluptuous young woman, is spotted walking on the beach by artist Evan Redlake, who is sketching among the dunes.

Hesper soon becomes a lady of leisure who enjoys a life of luxurious comfort, though she has moments of dissatisfaction and her hard-bitten mother says bluntly that Honeywood women are built for work, not for pleasure.

Kirkus Reviews noted, "more ambitious novel than its predecessors, Dragonwyck and The Turquoise, it seems derivative, imitative, and too dependent on the panoply of history and the changing scene over a long life than on the significance of characterization".