Sydney is 29 years old and fit enough, with hair a color she's never been able to describe. She's been married twice: once divorced, once widowed. She divorced a man she was afraid would die and married a man who died in the place he should have been the safest. Her divorce and widowhood have left her in a state of emotional paralysis. She enters into a strange and unproductive period of her life, still dealing with the grief of losing her second husband, Daniel.

Sydney is hired for the summer to tutor Julie Edwards (the well-to-do Edwards’s teen-age daughter). Julie is staying with her family on the New England Oceanfront. Julie is intellectually slow and, Sydney notes, sure to be a disappointment to her mother. Sydney senses her presence disrupts the family’s equilibrium.

Ben and Jeff (the Edwards’s two grown sons) join the family at their oceanfront summer home. Both of them are vying for Sydney's affections.

Sydney finds the tensions within the Edward family unnerving. She enters into a strange love triangle with Ben and Jeff. This love triangle causes even more tension within the family and threatens to tear the family even further apart.

Swallowed up by the waves, cold, surf and shifting sand, simple tasks seem insurmountable. The surge carries Sydney along at tremendous speed, riding the waves. The fight wasn't over a lost set of keys, but rather of failed expectations. It's about looking beneath the surface - below the superficial.

Anita Shreve is a story-teller with profound wisdom and insight. Body Surfing covers a wide range of emotions, including grief, betrayal and deception. A very realistic view into the human soul. A truly captivating and memorable story.