title: Sea Lovers: Selected Stories
author: Valerie Martin
description: "Martins prose is lucid, and she avoids stylistic pyrotechnics. Her primary aim is to allow her characters their contradictory feelings, giving them room to breathe ... Martins complex and wonderful stories, with their careful rendering and sober insights, offer their own kind of relief for the reader: This book is a long, cool drink of water."<br /><b><i>New York Times Book Review</i></b><br /><br />"Valerie Martin is a consummate stylist. A cool, spare writer who can make the fantastic utterly, often horribly believable ... In her latest collection of 12 short stories that gift is on full display. A mermaid washes ashore, with murderous intent. A magical suitor displays bad behavior, as do all sorts of more realistic lovers and spouses, artists and writers. Most often, the stories resolve with a twistsome tragic, some simply oddthat causes them to linger in the readers mind: cautionary tales about the mysteries of life."<br /><b><i>Boston Globe</i></b><br /><br />"Whether theyre self-absorbed painters, deserted women, or even centaurs, Martins characters are torn between the facades they don and the baser, more animalistic impulsesthe needs for power, attention, and revengethat animate them ... an insightful look into the evolution of Martins writing and her talent for depicting our darker natures. Varied, engaging, and often shocking."<br /><b><i>Kirkus Reviews, </i>starred review<br /><br /></b>"This collection is rife with the unspoken cracks between people, and leaves a haunting, lingering impression."<br /><b><i>Publishers Weekly</i></b>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Sea Shenanigans Collection Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Robyn Peterman
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [www.robynpeterman.com](http://www.robynpeterman.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2020 by Robyn Peterman
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
  mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
  written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in
  a book review.
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
  either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies,
  events, or locales is coincidental.
  
  
  _This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and
  under._
  
  
  Cover by _Rebecca Poole of dreams2media_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](part0003.html#2RHM0-08cdc9a9ecaf40ccb323d5b60