The Sea Flower

Ruth Moore

Islandport Press

This reissue of The Sea Flower (1964) centers on two down-and-out orphans, a persnickety cat, an eccentric fisherman, and the hurricane which brings them together. Marney Lessard and Liz Bigelow separately fled from trouble only to find themselves adrift on the same luxury houseboat. When they run aground on a nearly deserted Maine island, Arvid Small comes to their rescue. Stout and friendly, the island’s one seasonal resident attempts to change their fortunes with the help of some friends who are as genuine as the coastal Maine folk Ruth Moore knew herself.

Pirate Trap

Matt Cost

Encircle Publications

Did Sam Bellamy bury pirate treasure in Port Essex 300 years ago? After finding an incredibly lucrative Spanish treasure in the Keys of Florida, "Black Sam" Bellamy decided to leave the pirate life and return to his true love in New England. Before being shipwrecked on the way to retrieve her, he hid his booty with the Chbo So Clan in Port Essex. Years later, Clay Wolfe (recently devastated by the death of his grandfather) is hired by an antiques dealer to find long-lost pirate treasure—finding himself pitted against an unscrupulous sex doll tradesman, a motorcycle gang, a greedy salvage boat operator, and other mysterious entities. Also recruited for this treasure hunt is Clay's crew: Westy, Crystal, Murphy, Cloutier, and of course, Baylee Baker. Will the spark between Clay and his partner, Baylee, finally bursts into flame?

Nature Magic on the Appalachian Trail: Maine

Joseph Barnett

Independently Published

This first in a series describes the Maine section of the Appalachian Trail (AT). Subway Gramps began his southbound hike July 4th, on top of Mt. Katahdin, watching northbound hikers celebrate the finish of their 2,192-mile thru-hikes from Georgia to Maine. As happy as they were, a common regret was, “I wish I’d stopped more often to enjoy nature.” On his trek to Georgia, Subway Gramps did stop. He stopped to experience every bit of nature magic. Interesting tidbits learned from nature books, park brochures, kiosks, and biologists made each of his stops so wonderful, Gramps called them “Nature Magic.” Colorful photos make this volume more than an adventure book. It is also a celebration of the birds, butterflies, flowers, shrubs, trees, and wildlife so many hikers walk past but never "see." As Benton MacKaye once said, “The purpose of the Appalachian Trail is to walk, to see, and to see what you see.”

Calm Command: U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller in His Times, 1888-1910

Douglas Rooks

Maine Authors Publishing

Why is so little known today about the most important judge Maine ever produced? A veteran journalist and author delves into Supreme Court archives, letters and rare documents to produce a portrait of U.S. Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller varying sharply from popular perceptions. In this first biography written about him in decades, Fuller emerges as a humane and disciplined figure. Calm Command depicts a strong progressive streak in our third-longest-serving Chief Justice, with concern for death row inmates, victims of lynching, and citizens of Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico, who (despite Fuller's best efforts) are still condemned to second-class citizenship. Fuller helped create the U.S. Courts of Appeal, pioneered in international arbitration, and won the case establishing a “public trust” for waterfronts, beaches and harbors. Dramatic events, including strikes, the rise of industrial capitalism, and imperialistic wars, receive full treatment. Kirkus Reviews terms this work “enlightening, instructive,” while historian Paul Mills calls it “a great book.”

Soundtrack To Your Next Panic Attack

Mike Bove

Kelsay Books

"In his stunning collection, Soundtrack to Your Next Panic Attack, Mike Bove creates a map of elegies—shaping a landscape of grief and love, lamenting the loss of his father, examining the sorrows of his childhood, celebrating the difficulties and joys of parenthood and marriage, and walking us on his journey into middle age. In these poems, remembered sounds, 'stone / falling heavy onto earth,' objects in attics, photographs, and detritus left in drawers are relics to an ever-shifting past, to a present imbued with reflective tenderness. 'We must consider ourselves / fortunate to be / brutalized by existence,' Bove writes, and we come to feel along with him the wonder in all the varied shades of life—the remembered and expected pain, the joy of having and losing," Meghan Sterling, author of These Few Seeds, View From a Borrowed Field, and Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora.