Island of First Light

The Novel

"The flaming edge of Father Sun appeared over the sea. Slowly, it rose golden-red, a fireball. Its first rays shot across the undulating sea and she felt them on her face.... She began to chant a welcome to the dawn as shafts of sunlight moved across the rocks and the trees of Island of First Light.... "
                                                                                                                   

 

Following the success of his first novel, Sea Room, Norman Gautreau returns to the coast of New England with Island of First Light.

Island of First Light is a richly textured novel about three people intertwining with one another on two remote islands off the coast of Downeast Maine, whose impulses drive them toward a startling conclusion.

Caitlin Gray, hoping for solitude, has come to Alabaster Island to escape a disintegrating marriage and the emotional scars of a horrific accident only to find she cannot escape the ties that bind people. Freddy Orcutt, a retired fisherman who is deeply troubled by personal loss (the mystery of his son’s disappearance and the terrible effect it had on his wife) and by the things he witnessed and did during World War II finds in Caitlin the fragile hope of a new kind of relationship. Their lives are changed irrevocably when O’zalik Moseley, a Native American desperate to preserve her Passamaquoddy heritage and find a sense of belonging, comes across an ancient journal kept by a Jesuit priest in 1755. The journal, exposing atrocities committed by ancestors of the current residents of Alabaster Island, propels the three people toward an explosive conclusion that reveals the truth about a long held island secret.

Island of First Light is about human nature and the sense of family we all search for when faced with adversity and the evils of the world. It is about how people often try to shield themselves from painful truths, softening life the way snow softens the rough edges of the earth. As in his first novel Sea Room, Gautreau displays a finely tuned sense of place, bringing alive the rugged Maine coast and the harsh landscape that can be as turbulent as the lives of the people who live there.

                                    -From the Jacket Cover of Island of First Light

You may order a copy of the book now from your 
   local bookstore or online at bookstores' websites: 
        Island of First Light  ISBN 1-931561-71-0.  

See online links on the page.

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