Emotionally neglected by her mother, abandoned by her father, Mattie O’Rourke spent her childhood starved for the one thing she thought she’d never find: love. When her mother dies and, at twenty-two, she finds herself completely without ties of any kind, Mattie takes a chance at ending her loneliness and moves to a tiny coastal Florida town. At the Suwannee Swifty convenience store, a sea change envelops her. Mattie O’Rourke sees Proteus Nicholas Blue and their fate is sealed after only a few shy, stolen glances. Nick walks into Mattie’s life having fled his own. A lifelong fisherman from a remote island off the coast, Nick is haunted by the certain knowledge that the sea will be the death of him (as it has been for all the Blue men) and he has resolved to leave it behind. But as Nick and Mattie settle into an intimacy that both comforts and surprises them, Nick feels the inextricable pull of the waxing moon’s tide and the siren’s call of the dolphins that, Blue legend has it, are his brethren. And so it is that Mattie, who only months before felt that happiness would never find her, returns with Nick to the island home that nurtured him and finds herself embraced by a large and loving family and an alluring and sensual landscape. Life on Lethe is transforming for Mattie. But Nick always knew that the sea would claim him, and all of Mattie’s love cannot prevent the tragedy that is their destiny. Moving and enchanting, Remembering Blue is a lush story of love, loss, and the mythic power of the ocean, told in an elegant and passionate voice that could only come from Connie May Fowler.

Remembering Blue: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Fowler, Connie May

Literature & Fiction

Ballantine Books

Connie May Fowler is known to the world as the author of bestselling novels and powerful essays—but no one knew that for years she was the victim of brutal abuse and relentless humiliation. Now in this harrowing, spellbinding memoir, Fowler finally tells her own story. The daughter and grand-daughter of battered women, Fowler found herself irresistibly drawn to a man who was bent on destroying her, physically and emotionally. Despite her youth, spirit, education, and wonderful talent, she was trapped in a cycle of violence and despair with no way out. Until the day she adopted an incredible puppy she named Kateland. With stunning candor, Connie May Fowler reveals how the unconditional love and loyalty of this dog helped her turn the corner, find a safe place, and reclaim her own life. A work of extraordinary passion and courage, When Katie Wakes holds out hope and inspiration to anyone who has ever dreamed of starting over.

When Katie Wakes (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

"This is how I came to be more than a flicker in the world's peripheral vision. How I came to respect and value family. How I moved to a deeper understanding of past wrongs. How I began to approach the future with both anticipation and forgiveness. A stranger walked into a store..." From Connie May Fowler, author of the bestselling and award-winning Before Women Had Wings, comes a maritime saga and extraordinary love story between Mattie Blue and her husband, Nick, a fisherman on a small Florida island. Recently widowed and filled with grief, Mattie spins a tale of her beloved husband--his birth, his death, his love of the sea, his haunted fear of a family legend of drowning, and their romantic, unflagging devotion to each other. Setting out to build a new life far removed from her lonely childhood, twenty-two-year-old Mattie expects another dull, efficient working day at the Suwannee Swifty convenience store when Proteus Nicholas Blue stops in and changes her life. Two days after leaving his large, nurturing Greek family on the small island of Lethe, Nick believes he has given up the sea, with its magic and its danger, for good, but their love transforms them both. As she struggles to build a new life--first with and later without Nick, surrounded by her new relatives--we discover along with her the infinite sources of strength to be found in familiar places, the comfort of family, and the healing power of memory. Connie May Fowler is that rare author who is both elegant in her writing and passionate in her storytelling. Although her latest novel begins in the aftermath of a tragic event, her accomplished storytelling reveals how the life-affirming humor, joy, and incredible love between two people can make them so much more than they were alone. An exploration of grief and transcendence, Remembering Blue is as much about the allure and mysteries of the village as about the people who inhabit it. It is an unforgettable, beautifully told story that will affirm Connie May Fowler's place at the forefront of American writers. Mattie Fiona Blue, recently widowed and filled with grief, spins a tale of her beloved husband, Nick--his birth, his death, his love of the sea, his haunted fear of a family legend of drowning, and their romantic, unflagging devotion to each other. In Mattie's courageous and stubborn telling of the story, we find REMEMBERING BLUE's true power: its quiet insistence that the living and the dead, the past and the present, the ancient and the yet-to-be, reside within us, coexisting, via memory, story, and myth. While mourning Nick, Mattie tells us of her own life as she journeys from the loneliness of a broken home and disapproving mother to the chaotic, mythic, abundant sphere of Nick Blue and his sprawling Greek-American fishing family, whose ties to the sea extend across generations, continents, and time. On the bridgeless island of Lethe, Nick's family's home, in the midst of isolation and nature's bounty, Mattie comes into her own, navigating through the complex joys and demands of her new family even as she begins to see with wiser eyes the ocean's duality. An exploration of grief and transcendence, REMEMBERING BLUE is as much about the allure and mysteries of the village as about the people who live there. It is an unforgettable, beautifully told story that will affirm Connie May Fowler's place at the forefront of American writers. --&gt;

Remembering Blue: A Novel

United States

DOUBLEDAY

The bestselling author of Before Women Had Wings spins a wild new tale about the strong bonds among a group of friends that loses its quirkiest member, Murmur Lee. Exploring new literary territory while keeping to her native Floridian roots, Fowler is here at her most original and entertaining. As a new year dawns over the island of Iris Haven, Murmur Lee Harp and her lover, Billy, go for a romantic sail without a care in the world. The evening comes to an abrupt halt when Murmur Lee discovers that she has drowned—but by whose hand?—in the Iris Haven river. Grief-stricken and haunted by the mysteries surrounding her death, Murmur Lee’s circle of friends sets out to discover what really happened to her, and in the process they learn as much about her failings and triumphs as their own. After years of self-exile in the North, Charlee Mudd returns to set her best friend’s affairs in order, only to confront her own ghosts. Edith Piaf, a former marine whose sex change at the age of sixty-two Murmur Lee supported unquestioningly, must find the confidence to carry on without the encouragement of her friend. Lonely widower Dr. Zachary Klein plummets into the depths of depression at the loss of the second woman he has ever loved. As for Murmur Lee—who lived her entire life on an island named by her great-great grandfather in honor of the Greek goddess who receives the souls of dying women—in death she experiences her own journey as she is plunged into her familial past and discovers the truth about who she really is. With poignancy and humor Fowler weaves the voices of Murmur and her friends into a compelling narrative. Part family saga, part murder mystery, The Problem with Murmur Lee is Fowler’s most rewarding and engrossing work yet.

The Problem With Murmur Lee

Bestselling author Connie May Fowler tells her own extraordinary story for the first time–the harrowing years of her childhood followed by the abusive relationship she endured as a young woman–and how the unconditional love of her dog helped her escape her physical and emotional bonds. Before Women Had Wings, Connie May Fowler’s award-winning and bestselling fictional account of domestic abuse, touched thousands. In this piercing memoir, Fowler chronicles the emotional battery and physical abuse that marked her own passage to adulthood. She draws a searing portrait of growing up with her manipulative and needy mother, a woman unable to give the love and comfort every child has a right to expect. And then, as a young woman, Fowler found herself involved with a man whose behavior disturbingly echoed her mother’s. The man she lived with alternately displayed a desperate need for her or rejected her as if she were worse than useless. With heart-wrenching candor, Fowler records the abuse she suffered at his hands, from his constant attempts to undermine her self- confidence to his acts of brutal physical violence. The unconditional love Fowler longed for finally came–in the shape of an adoring Labrador puppy named Kateland. With Katie at her side, she was able to withstand her mistreatment and the crushing weight of her childhood and, miraculously, managed to create a small refuge from the horrors that surrounded her. This is the story of her decision to end the years of mistreatment and even to open her life to a new, gentle man, whose love and understanding helped to transform her. Well known for her fiction and her work with victims of domestic abuse, Fowler now offers a strong helping hand to women everywhere in this startling, revealing, and ultimately inspiring memoir.

When Katie Wakes: A Memoir

Two families in the sugarcane fields of Florida--the Looneys and the Jewels--struggle to step beyond the traditions and customs of the past and into the changing world of a new South

Sugar Cage

Literary

Putnam Adult

"HEARTBREAKING...COMPELLING...The story carries you like a slow, implacable current." --San Francisco Chronicle Forty-something Sadie Hunter is a loner. But more than that, she is afraid of not being alone. Ever since her mother and Native American grandmother died together when she was a child, dancing cheek-to-cheek in a saloon in the middle of a violent storm, Sadie hasn't let anyone get too close. Not even Carlos, a passionate Cuban who sees the rich soul that Sadie tries to hide from herself. Cynical and loveless, she becomes obsessed with learning more about her unacknowledged identity, torn apart by tragic family legends she can't quite believe. And although she tries to fight it, she half suspects that with Carlos's help, she could find the truth of the past, and it could set her free.... "A fluid, fun read--a story of self-discovery told by a woman haunted by female forebears while struggling to learn love....A work of accomplished introspection." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

River of Hidden Dreams

G.P.Putnam's Sons

Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Avocet Abigail "Bird" Jackson fancies herself "His girlfriend" and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos of her home life plunges her into a stony silence. In stark and honest language, Bird tells the tragic tale of her father, a sweet-talking wanna-be country music star, tracks her older sister's perilous journey into womanhood, and witnesses her mother make a courageous and ultimately devastating decision. Yet most profound is Bird's own story--her struggle to sift through the ashes of her parents' lives, her meeting with Miss Zora, a healer whose prayers over the bones of winged creatures are meant to guide their souls to heaven, and her will to make sense of a world where fear is more plentiful than hope, retribution more valued than love. . . .

Before Women Had Wings

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly is the transcendent story of a young woman who, in a twenty-four hour period, journeys through startling moments of self-discovery that lead her to a courageous and life-altering decision.

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

Grand Central Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fowler, Connie May. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fowler, Connie May

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fowler, Connie May. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Remembering Blue: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

When Katie Wakes (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Remembering Blue: A Novel

The Problem With Murmur Lee

When Katie Wakes: A Memoir

Sugar Cage

River of Hidden Dreams

Before Women Had Wings

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly