Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature of the Breaking the Spine blog. It's a great way to share information about a forthcoming book with other readers.
This week's anticipated book:
The Rathbones by Janice Clark
Mercy Rathbone, fifteen years old, is the diminutive scion of the Rathbone clan. Her father, the last in the beleaguered dynasty, has been lost at sea for seven years - ever since the last whale was seen off the coast of Naiwayonk, Connecticut. Mercy's memories of her father grow dimmer each day, and she spends most of her time in the attic hideaway of her reclusive uncle Mordecai, who teaches her the secrets of Greek history and nautical navigation through his collection of specimens and moldering books. But when a strange, violent visitor turns up one night, Mercy and Mordecai are forced to flee the crumbling mansion and set sail on a journey that will bring them deep into the haunted history of the Rathbone family, and the reasons for its undoing.
Publication Date: August 6, 2013
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Preorder now from online and bricks and mortar bookstores
From barnesandnoble.com:
A
gothic, literary adventure set in New England, Janice Clark's haunting
debut chronicles one hundred years of a once prosperous and now
crumbling whaling family, told by its last surviving member.
Mercy Rathbone, fifteen years old, is the diminutive scion of the Rathbone clan. Her father, the last in the beleaguered dynasty, has been lost at sea for seven years - ever since the last whale was seen off the coast of Naiwayonk, Connecticut. Mercy's memories of her father grow dimmer each day, and she spends most of her time in the attic hideaway of her reclusive uncle Mordecai, who teaches her the secrets of Greek history and nautical navigation through his collection of specimens and moldering books. But when a strange, violent visitor turns up one night, Mercy and Mordecai are forced to flee the crumbling mansion and set sail on a journey that will bring them deep into the haunted history of the Rathbone family, and the reasons for its undoing.
As Mercy and Mordecai sail from
island to island off the Connecticut coast, encountering dangers and
mysteries, friends and foes, they untangle the knots of the Rathbone
story, discovering secrets long encased in memory. They learn the
history of the family’s founder and patriarch, Moses Rathbone, and the
legendary empire he built of ships staffed with the sons of his many,
many wives. Sons who stumbled in their father’s shadow, distracted by
the arrival of the Stark sisters, a trio of “golden” girls, whose
mesmerizing beauty may have sparked the Rathbone’s decline.
From the depths of the sea to the
lonely heights of the widow’s walk; from the wisdom of the worn
Rathbone wives to the mysterious origins of a sinking island, Mercy and
Mordecai’s journey will bring them to places they never thought
possible. But will they piece together a possible future from the
mistakes of the past, or is the once great family’s fate doomed to
match that of the whales themselves?
Inspired by The Odyssey by way of Edgar Allan Poe and Moby Dick, The Rathbones is an ambitious, mythic, and courageous tour de force that marks the debut of a dazzling new literary voice.
Enjoy life with books...
Catherine
Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader
Waiting on Wednesday: The Rathbones was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.
Catherine
Follow me on Twitter: @bookclubreader
Waiting on Wednesday: The Rathbones was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.
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