"Eternal on the Water" will be released on February 16th!
From Amazon.com...
"From the day Cobb and Mary meet kayaking on Maine's Allagash River and fall deeply in love, the two approach life with the same sense of adventure they use to conquer the river's treacherous rapids. But rivers do not let go so easily... and neither does their love. So when Mary's life takes the cruelest turn, she vows to face those rough waters on her own terms and asks Cobb to promise, when the time comes, to help her return to their beloved river for one final journey."
Beautifully written — "Eternal on the Water" is one of the most wonderfully sounding novels I've read. The words flow together like poetry. The dialogue and narrative draw readers in with almost a musical intonation.
It was the beautiful language that kept me reading this novel. I honored my Review Policy and read the first 100 pages, but at 101 I had to put this book down. While slow and overly descriptive, the plot was intriguing and, unlike other books I abandon, I do wonder what happened to Cobb and Mary. But the lack of character development or overall characterization really slowed the plot down.
The first flaw in characterization was the perfect characters. Neither Cobb nor Mary had a character flaw. Both characters are present as the epitome of gender perfection. Cobb always knows what to say and is the perfect boyfriend Mary is stunningly beautiful inside and out. The entire beginning of the relationship (obviously up until page 151) is picture perfect, flawlessly romantic, and utterly unrealistic.
Bottomline: As a result of said levels of perfection, the characters and overall novel were boring. As a reader, I was unable to relate to the characters or the plot.
However, like I said, "Eternal on the Water" was written beautifully; if you're looking for a wonderfully worded novel full of descriptors — check out this book.
Favorite Quotes:
"We have to be in a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat. Long odds... A thousand coincidences that arranged themselves so that we would meet. And then, of course, you have to be attracted to each other... . You never expect to see it, but you've heard it's out there and it might just be a legend. But you keep looking for it anyway" (34).
"This is who I want to live, with this woman, with friends, with food, and with fires" (49).
"It's a beautiful story. It makes me want to date you for another day at least" (53).
"Don't spit into heaven. Don't tell the gods your plans; they'll only laugh" (55).
"If the sun blew up and I had ten minutes to do live, I would do push ups because time passes really slow when you do push ups."
"A rich man is in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone — Thoreau"
"That's the whole thing with teaching, isn't it? You never know when you nudge someones boat if it won't change them in an important way."