In this meme, bloggers usually deal with three W’s. WHAT have you finished? WHAT are you reading now? and WHAT are you going to read next? Today, I will deal only with the first W because I want to review the amazing book I’ve just finished.

I heard about this author, Grayson Owens, through a friend of a friend, and when Mr. Owens agreed to allow me to read his novel and review it on PWR, I was thrilled. The cover alone caught my attention right away. It wraps around the book from the front, then fully filling up the back, shows an amulet carved depicting a lighthouse and the word, “Home.”

The author told me on the phone that many think (especially from the opening) the story is a seafaring adventure. However, Owens said it is mainly a love story. The prologue opens with the account of a newspaper article from 1871 describing how a mysterious fog bank accosted the small town of Salem, infamous for the witch trials. Strangely, out of the fog, fishermen dressed in oilskins, walked across the water to the docks. It was assumed that these spirits were men who had died on the Howard Johnson, a schooner which had been rammed by the Andrew Johnson, as it sank her and drowned all hands aboard.

One of these hands was Hank, a lowly sailor who had met and fallen in love with Constance, daughter of a wealthy seafaring captain. The two young people met clandestinely, but when Constance’s disapproving father robbed Hank of his chance to captain a vessel, he shipped out as a lowly seaman, seeking to better his finances and position so he could ask Constance to marry him. The amulet on the cover was a strong love charm, containing a strand of Constance’s hair wrapped around a small cross that would guarantee his return home.

All this information is revealed to Blake, an ambitious lawyer in 1947, as he read his relative’s journal upon visiting the town to settle a lawsuit which would enable his firm to acquire property from a stubborn owner who refused to sell. This seemingly impossible task would guarantee the law firm would make a huge amount of money, and for the overly ambitious Blake to achieve partner status. As he read of Hank and Constance’s deep love which conquered everything, evidently even death, Blake changes and comes to realize that the most important thing in life is not money and status, but love .

Intrigue, betrayal, crime, evil, and the supernatural all come into play in this wonderful story of a love that conquers all. As the supernatural events described in the newspaper article come to pass, the reader is caught up in the plot and subplots which keeps him turning the pages to see what happens next. As the author says , “Love is, after all, the greatest supernatural experience of all.”

I highly label this novel a “darned good read.”

RAE 10/25/23