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: Table	of	Contents
  Title	Page
  Table	of	Contents
  Copyright
  Foreword
  Introduction
  MEGAN	ABBOTT	My	Heart	Is	Either	Broken
  DANIEL	ALARCÓN	Collectors
  JIM	ALLYN	Princess	Anne
  JODI	ANGEL	Snuff
  RUSSELL	BANKS	Former	Marine
  JAMES	LEE	BURKE	Going	Across	Jordan
  PATRICIA	ENGEL	Aida
  ERNEST	FINNEY	The	Wrecker
  ROXANE	GAY	I	Will	Follow	You
  MICHELLE	BUTLER	HALLETT	Bush-Hammer	Finish
  CHARLAINE	HARRIS	Small	Kingdoms
  JOSEPH	HELLER	Almost	Like	Christmas
  DAVID	H.	INGRAM	The	Covering	Storm
  ED	KURTZ	A	Good	Marriage
  MATTHEW	NEILL	NULL	Gauley	Season
  ANNIE	PROULX	Rough	Deeds
  SCOTT	LORING	SANDERS	Pleasant	Grove
  NANCY	PAULINE	SIMPSON	Festered	Wounds
  DENNIS	TAFOYA	Satan’s	Kingdom
  LAURA	VAN	BERG	Antarctica
  Contributors’	Notes
  Other	Distinguished	Mystery	Stories	of	2014
  Read	More	from	The	Best	American	Series®
  About	the	Editors
  
  Copyright	©	2014	by	Houghton	Mifflin	Harcourt	Publishing	Company
  Introduction	copyright	©	2014	by	Laura	Lippman
  	
  ALL	RIGHTS	RESERVED
  	
  The	Best	American	Series®	is	a	registered	trademark	of	Ho