Sandcastle girls

the long version

The First World War is spreading across Europe, and Elizabeth Endicott has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York. Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought, but when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura's grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family's history that reveals love, loss, and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.