Sea Change by Kate Hancock, Archway Publishing, 212 pages, $15.99.

Sea Change, a new novel by Kate Hancock, picks up where her 2014 book Windswept ended.

Windswept introduced readers to the Bennett family, twins Andy and Samantha, Rachel their mother, and Ben their father who lost his life on 9/11. This tragedy eventually leads the family to leave their home in New Jersey and move full-time to their summer home named Windswept, located on the Vineyard, on East Chop Drive.

Windswept explores the family’s process of healing from the tragic loss of a beloved husband and father. An important part of this process for the twins, Andy and Sam, was coming across a pirate legend of buried treasure on the Chappaquiddick beach. This legend captures their imagination and gives them a purpose in life to help them move beyond the death of their father.

Although they find some measure of healing by the end of Windswept, the twins never find the treasure. Enter Sea Change, which picks up their story.

The new novel contains two parallel stories. The first one involves the Bennett twins and their continued efforts to uncover the mystery of the pirate legend as well as their equally challenging adjustment to becoming freshmen in high school.

The second story reaches back to the past and the origins of the pirate legend. Three sailors land on the Chappaquiddick beach on October 1796 during a major storm to bury the treasure. Once the treasure is buried, the leader of the group shoots his two mates and buries them along with the treasure. But one of the injured shipmates, Gilbert Finlay, survives. He claws his way up through the sand and emerges on the beach where he wanders aimlessly before collapsing unconscious from exhaustion and his wound. He is 13 years old at the time.

Gilbert is eventually found on the beach by Polly Cooke, the wife of Josiah Cooke who has a farm near where the treasure is buried. Polly and Josiah nurse Gilbert back to health and end up adopting him as a member of their family.

The story of the Cooke family proceeds in tandem as the Bennett twins uncover additional information from a journal they find at the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society written by Abigail Cooke, the daughter of Polly and Josiah.

The two stories flow together creating enough intriguing questions to keep one interested and reading. They contain a great deal of local color although they are not based on actual history. In addition, both stories have surprise endings which add to the novel’s appeal. The two stories come together in the most creative way on the last page of the novel.

In addition to being good reads, both Windswept and Sea Change provide important lessons in teen conflict resolution.