Bay of Fires: A Novel - Hardcover

Gee, Poppy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316201685 ISBN 13: 9780316201681

Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books, 2013

Synopsis

Sarah Avery's reckless behavior has cost her a job, her boyfriend, and the independence she desperately craves. Reluctantly home for the holidays in the Bay of Fires, a tiny seaside town on the Tasmanian coast, she hopes for a calm, quiet visit, with time to reflect on all that's gone wrong. Those hopes are crushed when, early one morning, she discovers the body of a young female backpacker washed up on the shore.

A year earlier, another woman went missing and hasn't been seen since. Now everyone wonders: is there a killer in the brush? Or were these women victims of Tasmania itself? The island is place of savage beauty: pristine sand beneath orange-lichen covered granite boulders; heaving shadowy kelp fields; sweeping cold currents; crackling bush beyond the seashore. It's also a landscape as flawed, vulnerable and vengeful as any human. Once its fragile peace is shattered, the locals' anxiety fuels a string of speculations about happened to the women - and who might be the next victim.

When journalist Hall Flynn arrives to investigate, haunted by recent failures and yearning for a fresh start, he's determined to do whatever it takes to break the story, and Sarah is his best source of local information. But Sarah - like everyone else in this close-knit town - has secrets she's desperate to keep hidden. And one of those secrets leads straight to a killer's door.

Haunting, evocative, as wildly atmospheric as the remote island where it takes place, BAY OF FIRES is a startling and wholly original debut.

About this title

About the Author:

Poppy Gee lives with her husband, two small children, and cat, in Brisbane, Australia. She wrote most of BAY OF FIRES, her first novel, at the kitchen table while the children slept.

From Booklist:

A year after a 16-year-old girl goes missing from the Bay of Fires on Tasmania’s northeast coast, the body of a visiting young Swiss woman washes up on the beach, and locals and tourists alike fear a serial killer. Sarah Avery, the second person to come upon the body, becomes intent on finding the killer while keeping secrets about the relationship she ended and the job she quit just before joining her family at their holiday shack. An independent and impetuous woman, Sarah connects with Hall Flynn, the journalist who arrives to cover the story and has his own secrets, notably an inability to get over the girlfriend who betrayed him with his best friend seven years earlier. As suspicion swirls around a strange local man, Hall must decide whether to write the story of his life or to protect a person he has come to care for. While Gee’s debut is nominally a mystery, this is no action whodunit with a slam-bang conclusion. Instead, the novel’s appeal comes more from its unusual sense of place and well-drawn, fallible characters. Enjoy at leisure. --Michele Leber

About this edition

• Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0316201685
• ISBN 13: 9780316201681
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 384