As direct and precise as a child's diary, By the Shore introduces the world of twelve-year-old May, who lives in a less-than-thriving oceanfront bed-and-breakfast run by her single mother. May's life is filled with the frustrations and promise of youth, complicated by a loving if distracted young mother who strives to care for her two children without forfeiting her own fun and passion.

May puts her faith in the things that elude her - an absent father, the London city life left behind, the acceptance of the popular girls who have boyfriends, off-the-rack clothes, and matronly mothers who provide more than tea and toast at mealtimes - and wonders if her life will ever change. When a kindly writer and his glamorous editor come to lodge in the weeks before Christmas, opportunities are in the air.

But then May's playboy father, estranged from the family for years, drops in and threatens to freeze the delicate new possibilities stirring in all their lives.