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As The National Seashore's bookstore clerk, Alden Warren focuses on stranded sea turtles and other innocents while confronting an ugly past: the disappearance of a philandering husband two years prior. Struggling to remain unaffected, she lusts after a married man while desperately trying to adopt a local foster baby living the neglected life. But everyone in town --- including the social worker she works with to gain the child --- knows Alden's interests are carefully chosen distractions from her husband tragedy. She can't get a break.
Then Alden's diversions give way to a real relationship with offbeat landscaper Lux Davis, whose wild intelligence she finds congenially refreshing. Their intense attraction results in a series of reckless adventures involving dumping deceased animals in the cars of those who malign Alden: the married man who, ultimately, can't take "no" for an answer and the social worker who can't take "yes" (I want this child) for an answer. Unbeknownst to Alden, Lux has his own morbid past surrounding her husband's vanishing.
Lux, or "Light" --- as defined by Alden's best friend, an elderly volunteer named Hyram (another well-chosen diversion) --- is symbolic. Downtrodden with a neurological condition causing him to "freeze," Lux desires Alden because she fulfills his idea of light: love with another misfit who can accept an eccentric disorder. Likewise, he represents her nirvana. The irony is in their romance's backdrop, an unmerciful, stormy ocean environment involving murder. Equally visited by inner demons related to the husband's disappearance and childhood trauma, Lux and Alden identify via inner and outer climates.
It is a rare writer who can mix poetry with roguish characters. Maria Flook does this brilliantly. Her passages, even when describing a dead turtle being belted into a car, remain ethereal. But it is a bestselling writer who accomplishes Flook's evanescence while prioritizing plot. Flook doesn't quite succeed. Many scenarios are dreamlike, diverging from the story.
An exquisite writer, Flook has been commended for her sharp, Woody Allen-like humor: In recalling one scene, a customer-weary Alden gives a new homeowner more information than is bargained for by telling the customer that the area's damp air causes year-round sinus problems. Here's hoping Flook capitalizes more on such funny witticisms!
--- Reviewed by Sara Webb Quest
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