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: St. Martin’s Press
  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. ALL OF THE CHARACTERS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND
  EVENTS PORTRAYED IN THIS STORY ARE EITHER PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR'S
  IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY.
  “Heart of the Sea”
  Copyright © 2009 by Christine Warren.
  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
  without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
  reviews. For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
  ISBN: 978-1-4299-9665-5
  
  Contents
  Heart of the Sea
  Preview
  About the Author
  
   
  Jenny Ferguson staggered across the floor of her cozy cottage with the grace and speed of a
  drunk on the tail end of a week-long bender. As she reached the door, she glanced to the right and
  caught a glimpse of herself in the oval mirror mounted against the wall and decided she looked li