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Welcome to the Late-October edition of MWPA's Ex Libris Maine.
This edition offers new books by Maine authors in the categories ofFiction, Speculative Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry, Young Adult/Young Readers, and Anthology.
For more information on any title below, simply click on the book's cover.
Blake Anderson thought he had his life together. When his father dies, Blake's troubled past catches up with him. Selling his father's dilapidated cabin becomes Blake's only priority, but the place is bursting with painful memories. Alex Taylor, the restoration contractor Blake hires to do the work, immediately recognizes the camp's potential, but she's not so sure about the reticent Blake. Beneath her feisty façade, however, Alex is hiding a secret of her own. Together, Blake and Alex restore the cabin to its original beauty, piece by piece. As they unearth secrets of the past, they stumble upon a tapestry of corruption and crime spanning decades. Compelled to find the truth, Blake and Alex must confront their inner demons, as well as some real-life criminals, as they struggle to overcome their pasts and learn to love again.
Events that the town is reluctant to remember, but cannot forget, come alive when an out-of-town couple takes over one of the oldest homes around–one that has long been unoccupied. The tale is set in a remote fishing village, one that understands tragedy and loss, where disaster looms around every corner; it copes in its own way with things that cannot be escaped. Those residing alongside the Passamaquoddy Bay continue to live the past alongside the present, but the region’s history is seldom taught elsewhere. The Ghost Of Emberly Gaspé is the most recent novel by JD Rule; each is independent with no repeating characters, but in its own way, explores those things that separate us and those things that bring us together. The author relies on his peripatetic lifestyle to help create a diversity of characters, each with their own unique viewpoint and desires.
1894. A pirate attack leaves Captain Littledove gravely wounded and his ship adrift with only one survivor–Eliza, a socialite who’s never worked a day in her life. This unlikely pair must overcome their social differences to survive. While Eliza battles rats, hacks apart furniture for firewood, and struggles to keep the cantankerous captain alive, she discovers strengths she never knew she had. And as Littledove guides her in keeping the ship afloat, he begins to see past her refined manners to recognize a courage matching his own. As attraction blooms, both must challenge the assumptions that have defined their lives. When Mist and Brine Touch is a masterful exploration of how crisis can shatter social barriers and unlock the potential that lies dormant within us all.
The stories in this collection stretch across a wide canvas of genres–horror, science fiction, and poetic fables, just to name a few. However, they are all united by a common thread–the examination of what truly separates the sane from the insane, the natural from the supernatural. In "Redcap Asylum," a doctor investigates her patient's claim that a mythical being is to blame for his incarceration. In "Plague of Consequences," a town tries to bury its dark secret and inevitably must face the consequences. In "The Damned Rain," a man on his deathbed stands trial for his life of sinful deeds. And, in "The Creature," a brand new story written just for this edition, we find a dark warning of a man's spiral into an abyss of horror, shrouded within the unlit alleyways of London. These tales and many more await.
Indian History on Deer Isle
William A. Haviland
Penobscot Books
In the late 1700s, when the first Anglo settlers stepped ashore on Deer Isle, Maine, they were far from the first to do so. For thousands of years people had lived, loved and labored on this and other islands as well as on the mainland. Early French explorers, traders and missionaries referred to the region’s inhabitants as Etchemins, a people who occupied the entire coast from the Kennebec River down east as far as the Saint John River. Their descendants today are known as Maliseets, Passamaquoddies and Penobscots. By the time English settlers arrived in the Penobscot region, native populations had been radically reduced by epidemics of diseases newly introduced from Europe, as well as more than a century of warfare. However, the survivors did not just abandon their old homeland, and in fact, their descendants have continued to visit Deer Isle and nearby islands into the 21st century.
I Thought the Shame Would Kill Me but Grace Set Me Free
In this luminous poetry-memoir, Rev. Dr. Tarasa B. Lovick transforms shame into the light of grace. With raw honesty and poetic beauty, she invites readers into her spiritual awakening—a sacred journey from terror to truth, from inherited pain to divine peace. Through poems and prose born of silence, India’s call, and intimate encounters with the Divine, Lovick shows how mercy and forgiveness heal even the deepest wounds. Her writing is both vulnerable and transcendent, guiding us to trust the light within and remember our own divinity. I Thought the Shame Would Kill Me is more than a memoir; it’s a heart-opening meditation on Love’s power to redeem, restore, and free the soul to forgive the unforgivable.
Wolves In Shells is a modern monomyth telling the story of a woman navigating homelessness, trauma, and memories as she attempts to leave a violent partner. Reflecting on her familial heritage, this survivor grapples with the way she, the women of her history, and her daughter have been conditioned to accommodate the demands of the male ego and predation. Reflective, clear-eyed, and incisive, the poems of Wolves in Shells feature O-Six, a wolf born into the rewilding territory of Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s, serving as a metaphor for women who must cope with violence and survive on their own. Drawing from Gaston Bachelard’s quote “wolves in shells are crueler than stray ones,” the narrative considers how survival requires a balance of protectiveness, risk, trust, and escape.
Twelve-year-old Ellie moves to her grandmother’s Maine homestead, uncovering extraordinary secrets about her family, community, and nature. In this small coastal town, she finds her voice as a young climate activist, aided by a group of new friends, a mysterious seal, and her grandmother’s spirit. Set on the wild Maine coast, The Secret of the Catapus is a coming-of-age tale blending environmental urgency with heartfelt storytelling, humor, and magical realism.
Abandoned as a child, and burdened by self-doubt, Andromeda "Andy" Smith escapes her abusive foster home to seek refuge in Maine’s wilderness. But when she loses her backpack containing her survival gear, Andy faces a critical choice: leave the woods or stay and fight to survive. Alone in the wild, she discovers unexpected courage and learns the truth about her worth.
Positivity Bias: Maine Writers, Defiantly Happy Endings
Edited by Gillian Burnes
Littoral Books
These thirteen short stories by ten Maine writers give us memorable characters–on the mend, home again, woefully married, struck by lightning, unmedicated, bewitched, at sea, displaced, embarrassed, in love. . .and all headed for authentic, wholly credible happy endings. Edited by novelist Gillian Burnes (author of Soft Features), this anthology includes stories by Burnes, Kaylie Borden O’Brien, Gerry Boyle, Nick Bushell, Robert Diamante, Art Dingley, Madison Ellingsworth, Eleanor Morse, Dave Patterson and Lynn Siefert. “Happy endings get a bad rap in a culture devoted to dysfunction and disaster. But happy endings are just what we need in our most troubling moments. These stories not only deliver the goods (and the good!) in the end, but in the beginning and the middle, too” – Bill Roorbach, author of Beep, Lucky Turtle, and The Girl of the Lake.
SUBMISSIONS If you are a current Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance member, and you would like to announce your new book in ExLibris Maine, click HERE. If you are not a member, click HERE to learn more about our member benefits.
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