The Shore
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2015
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES/PETERS FRASER & DUNLOP YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2015
The Shore. A collection of small islands sticking out from the coast of Virginia into the Atlantic Ocean that has been home to generations of fierce and resilient women. Sanctuary to some but nightmare to others, it’s a place they’ve inhabited, fled, and returned to for hundreds of years.
The women are united by both small miracles and miseries: from a brave girl’s determination to protect her younger sister as methamphetamine ravages their family, to a lesson in summoning storm clouds to help end a drought. Their interconnected stories form a deeply affecting legacy of two island families bound not just by blood, but by fate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This searing debut novel comprises 13 nonlinear chapters that interweave past and future, realism and fantasy. Ranging from 1876 to 2143, their primary setting is the Virginia coastal islands (Chincoteague is the best known) that residents call simply the Shore. Taylor's story centers on the family of fictional Shore resident Medora Slater, who can heal women powerfully but is scarred by male violence. The book opens in 1995, when her descendant, teenager Chloe Gordy whose mother is dead and whose father is abusive and addicted battles fiercely to keep her younger sister safe. In later chapters we meet her mother Ellie, who conceived Chloe amid a night of tragedy, and Medora herself. Chloe's contemporary, Sally Lumsden, from another branch of the family, is a gifted herbalist with paranormal powers; she predicts the bleak future we see her great-niece Tamara struggling to survive. Though the parts of the book fit together in confusing ways, and two chapters set in the future are less convincing than the rest, the novel offers a promising new voice. Taylor excels at imagining outsider identities, female strength, the connection of people to place, and a world so perilous that damage and healing, brutality and resourcefulness merge.
