In Wood's slim book, a practical young man is scratching out a life in a small seaside English town when an energetic young American filmmaker bursts into town. Thrills and inspiration follow--along with danger and and uncertain implications for the future in this atmospheric, eerie, beautifully written novel. Young adult Thomas Flett lives a quiet life as a shanker scraping the shore for shrimp with a horse and cart in a small seaside northern English town. He lives with his

I really liked the magical realism, details of life in 1800s England, the young widow main character, the ocean voyage scenes, and the romance, but I had trouble pinning down the tone and the heart of the story, which followed a somewhat predictable path. In early 1800s England, Isabel is a young widow who is suddenly poor and plagued by destructive rumors after the Napoleonic Wars. She must flee her London home, and she heads for the Cornish coast where she was once mysterio

Carr's newest novel is a captivating series of character studies within a tightly knit Irish seaside community in the late 1900s. While...