Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark

I liked this book, and it is a good story well written, but I did not love it. The part that I like is that the book is about land and stewardship, about nature and conservation, but more than that, it is a book of friendship across the decades and about the complexities of women’s lives. Agnes Lee and Polly Wister, in their eighties, have known each other all their lives, having become friends as children on the coast of Maine as neighbors in the idyllic community of Fellowship Point. They couldn’t be more different—Agnes is a fiercely independent, successful author who never married; Polly is the mother of three boys and an overly devoted wife to her demanding husband, Dick. The preservation of the Maine peninsula they both live on is first and foremost on Agnes' mind--she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and she has never had an intimate bond with another, so she has a sparse understanding of how to compromise for the sake of your spouse or your children. Polly has children who openly talk about her not frittering away their inheritance, so she is herself legitimately torn about what to do. It is a microcosm of some of the bigger ecological issues we and our children will have to grapple with over the next several decades.