Water Music: A Cape Cod Story
By Marcia Peck
Perfect-bound paperback | 6 x 9 | 344 pages | May 5, 2023 | 979-8986567686
The Award Winning Summer Beach Read 2023 from Sea Crow Press
Finalist in the American Writing Awards for General Fiction and Women's Fiction
Firebird Book Award for Coming of Age Fiction
In Water Music: A Cape Cod Story, the salt-kissed air of Cape Cod becomes a canvas upon which the intricate strokes of family dynamics are painted.
The bridge at Sagamore was closed when we got there that summer of 1956. We had to cross the canal at Buzzards Bay over the only other roadway that tethered Cape Cod to the mainland.
Thus twelve-year-old Lily Grainger, while safe from ‘communists and the Pope,’ finds her family suddenly adrift. That was the summer the Andrea Doria sank, pilot whales stranded, and Lily’s father built a house he couldn't afford. Target practice on a nearby decommissioned Liberty Ship echoed not only the rancor in her parents' marriage, a rancor stoked by Lily’s competitive uncle, but also Lily’s troubles with her sister, her cousins, and especially with her mother. In her increasingly desperate efforts to salvage her parents' marriage, Lily discovers betrayals beyond her understanding as well as the small ways in which people try to rescue each other. She draws on her music lessons and her love of Cape Cod—from Sagamore and Monomoy to Nauset Spit and the Wellfleet Dunes, seeking safe passage from the limited world of her salt marsh to the larger, open ocean.
Reviews
“Readers will enjoy this tense, atmospheric family drama.”
-Kirkus Reviews
“…masterful family drama…”
“Lush, memory-driven story of family life in mid-century Cape Cod.”
-Booklife
“All in all, this is both a heartwarmer and a heartbreaker of a book.”
-Indie Reader
“…an extraordinary standout. It also deserves strong recommendation to all manner of book club reading groups, from those interested in modern women's fiction to others considering the descriptive elements which elevate a story from mundane to exceptional.”
-Midwest Book review
"(Lily) is a complex, endearing heroine.”
-Clarion (Foreword)
"Wise, funny and deeply moving."
-Carol Dines, author of This Distance We Call Love and The Take-Over Friend
"Observant and sensitive, deeply attuned to the beauty and fragility of the natural and human worlds."
-Andy Brown, author of The Tree Climbing Cure and Grace Notes and Other Poems
"Peck has written a moving and melodic triumph of imagination and story, a fine harmony of intimacies and passions."
-Nicole Helget, author of The Summer of Ordinary Ways
About The Author
Marcia Peck's writing has received awards from New Millenium Writings (First prize for "Memento Mori"), Tamarack Awards (honorable mention for "An Unexpected Cadence"), Lake Superior Writers' Conference (First Prize for "Pride and Humility"), Glimmer Train (finalist for Very Short Fiction Award for "The Flavor of Borscht"), Flashquake (nomination for Pushcart Prize for "Long Distance"), MnArtists MiniStories (Winner for "Little Vladimir's Father"), Open to Interpretation: Fading Light (Honorable Mention for "Sextet"), Gemini Magazine (Honorable Mention for "Lasting Formations"). Marcia's articles have appeared in Musical America, Strad Magazine, Strings Magazine, Senza Sordino, Life in the Real World: How to Make Music Graduates Employable Common Ground, Showcase, the magazine of the Minnesota Orchestra and the op-ed pages of the Minneapolis StarTribune.Her fiction has appeared in Chautauqua Journal, New Millenium Writings, Gemini Magazine, Glimmer Train, 26 Minnesota Writers (Nodine Press), Tribute to Orpheus 2 (Kearney Books), three volumes of Open to Interpretation: Fading Light (Taylor and O'Neill), among others. Her work has been supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board, The Loft Literary Center, and the Jerome Foundation, Ragdale Foundation and Hambidge Center.
Awards
Winner:
Literary Titan
New England Book Festivals “Regional Lit”
Next Generation Indie Book Awards “First Novel”
2nd Place:
Firebird “Coming of Age”
Honorable Mention:
Eric Hoffer “General Fiction”
Finalist:
Feathered Quill “Women’s Fiction”
American Writing Awards “General Fiction”
American Writing Awards “Hawthorne Prize”
The Wishing Shelf
Eric Hoffer Award “Grand Prize finalist”
Eric Hoffer “First Horizon Award”
National Indie Excellence “New Fiction”
National Indie Excellence “Regional: Northeast”
Long-Listed:
Chanticleer “Somerset Prize”
Historical Fiction “HFC Book of the Year”
