Janet of the Dunes

Set along the windswept dunes of Long Island’s eastern shore, this novel follows Janet, a spirited girl going on seventeen who was raised near a life-saving station by the gruff, devoted Cap’n Billy after her mother’s death. As she edges toward womanhood, she clings to the freedom of her barefoot girlhood even as artists and summer visitors begin to reach the quiet coast. A painter, Richard Thornly, arrives and asks to make her his model. Later Janet goes to a neighboring lighthouse to help care for the keeper’s wife, who has been disabled by a stroke, and learns what tenderness and duty ask of her. Comstock renders the shore and its weathered captains with real affection, and readers who enjoy gentle regional romance and coming-of-age stories rooted in place will find it unhurried and warmly observed.