The Bay of Love and Sorrows
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Written in taut, penetrating prose, Richards' new novel offers a wide array of unforgettable characters. All are wrestling with issues of integrity, self-preservation, and power in the close confines of their coastal community, and tragedy is waiting to happen. Home from college for the summer is Karrie Smith, whose deep longing for a more exciting life makes her especially vulnerable to the shady world between the decent and the dark. The summer becomes fraught with misadventures and abrupt changes in fortune, but it is only in the aftermath of a senseless murder that the real truth emerges. In this richly textured tale, THE BAY OF LOVE AND SORROWS exposes the heart of fierce need and the profligate greed of humankind, and explores the possibility of redemption in whatever circumstances people find themselves. This novel speaks to us, empowers us and enlightens us as Richards reveals the mist of moral uncertainty and the desperation of small-town life.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Richards's latest (after Mercy Among the Children) is the powerful tale of a botched drug deal in a small Nova Scotia town in the 1970s. Karrie Smith and Tom Donnerel are high school sweethearts who, by the summer after her first year of college, are mired in a long-term grudge match. Karrie gives in to her attraction to Tom's charismatic friend, Michael Skid, the son of a local judge who lures Karrie into a manipulative and loveless relationship. Michael, in turn, is manipulated by a drug dealer, Everette Hutch, who coerces Michael into using his father's sailboat to ship a stash of tainted drugs. Michael tosses the stash overboard when the Coast Guard suddenly turns up, but Everette is unimpressed by his resourcefulness, and Michael's effort to recoup the drug money sets off a chain of murders that leaves several main characters dead, Tom in prison, and Michael exonerated, though heartbroken. Michael gets his revenge, with the help of the ravaged beauty Madonna Brassaurd, a friend whose brother, Silver, played a pivotal role in the earlier murders. Richards's tight plotting keeps the labyrinthine narrative riveting. The cycles of violence and retribution sometimes verge on melodrama, an effect intensified by the occasionally portentous prose (" 'It will snow tomorrow,' thought Michael. 'It will snow all the days of my youth' ") and the thin characterizations of some of the teenagers (Karrie especially seems simpleminded and younger than her years). Yet in spite of their shortcomings, the characters' rage and bloodlust and remorse are always believable. Those who loved Richards's debut will appreciate once again the grit and moral intensity with which he infuses his provincial portraits.
