A memoir of growing up, living, working, and playing on one of America's premier tourist destinations. The stories and recollections convey a picture of the non-tourist side of Key West, and reveal a family side to commercial fishing.It is also a story about the author's father - an adventure seeker who fought naval battles in WWII, fished the distant Dry Tortugas and Bahama waters, searched for sunken treasure, and clashed with trap robbers and drug smugglers.
Instant New York Times bestseller One of Bustle’s Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020 “The perfect riveting summer read!”—BookBub In 1935 three women are forever changed when one of the most powerful hurricanes in history barrels toward the Florida Keys. For the tourists traveling on Henry Flagler’s legendary Overseas Railroad, Labor Day weekend is an opportunity to forget the economic depression gripping the nation. But one person’s paradise can be another’s prison, and Key West-native Helen Berner yearns to escape. After the Cuban Revolution of 1933 leaves Mirta Perez’s family in a precarious position, she agrees to an arranged marriage with a notorious American. Following her wedding in Havana, Mirta arrives in the Keys on her honeymoon. While she can’t deny the growing attraction to her new husband, his illicit business interests may threaten not only her relationship, but her life. Elizabeth Preston's trip to Key West is a chance to save her once-wealthy family from their troubles after the Wall Street crash. Her quest takes her to the camps occupied by veterans of the Great War and pairs her with an unlikely ally on a treacherous hunt of his own. Over the course of the holiday weekend, the women’s paths cross unexpectedly, and the danger swirling around them is matched only by the terrifying force of the deadly storm threatening the Keys.
So what, exactly, is Key West Normal? Well, Key West Normal is when two friends in need of a place to live drag away an abandoned hot dog truck in the middle of the night... But an insomniac New Yorker has got himself trapped inside it while searching for his neurotic cat... And the truck is the secret hub of a global smuggling operation and holds a stash worth millions... But the tough guy sent to recover the fortune is way more interested in being reunited with his one true love. Most of all, though, Key West Normal is when none of the above seems at all improbable. It's just the way things are. Or at least how they are in the funky, funny, palm-shaded, all-accepting town at the end of the road. And when it falls to the unlikeliest pair of heroes--a homeless man named Pineapple and an ancient Mafioso known as Bert the Shirt--to sort through all the many twists and turns and save the day, well, that's Key West Normal to the max. Full of tropical sunshine and crackling dialogue, loopy wisdom and touching revelations from characters you'll root for, this feel-good novel will lift you like an ocean wave and remind you how good it feels to forget your worries and laugh out loud.
Henry Flagler's Long Key Fishing Camp was very different from the other resorts Flagler built along the east coast of Florida, but the serene grounds and unparalleled fishing grounds inspired fierce loyalty among its clientele. Thomas Knowles offers the first history of this beloved getaway.
In 1839, Emily's husband vanishes from an isolated island off the coast of Key West where he tends to the lighthouse. Emily takes charge of the lighthouse to support her three children. But unexpected help arrives when a runaway slave washes up on their beach.
A Little Piece Of Ground will help young readers understand more about one of the worst conflicts afflicting our world today. Written by Elizabeth Laird, one of Great Britain’s best-known young adult authors, A Little Piece Of Ground explores the human cost of the occupation of Palestinian lands through the eyes of a young boy. Twelve-year-old Karim Aboudi and his family are trapped in their Ramallah home by a strict curfew. In response to a Palestinian suicide bombing, the Israeli military subjects the West Bank town to a virtual siege. Meanwhile, Karim, trapped at home with his teenage brother and fearful parents, longs to play football with his friends. When the curfew ends, he and his friend discover an unused patch of ground that’s the perfect site for a football pitch. Nearby, an old car hidden intact under bulldozed building makes a brilliant den. But in this city there’s constant danger, even for schoolboys. And when Israeli soldiers find Karim outside during the next curfew, it seems impossible that he will survive. This powerful book fills a substantial gap in existing young adult literature on the Middle East. With 23,000 copies already sold in the United Kingdom and Canada, this book is sure to find a wide audience among young adult readers in the United States.
The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job—with deadly results A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of “black mayonnaise.” Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as “beach whistles.” In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel—its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth’s deepest ocean trench—to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected over five years of reporting, award-winning writer Neil Swidey takes us deep into the lives of the divers, engineers, politicians, lawyers, and investigators involved in the tragedy and its aftermath, creating a taut, action-packed narrative. The climax comes just after the hard-partying DJ Gillis and his friend Billy Juse trade assignments as they head into the tunnel, sentencing one of them to death. An intimate portrait of the wreckage left in the wake of lives lost, the book—which Dennis Lehane calls "extraordinary" and compares with The Perfect Storm—is also a morality tale. What is the true cost of these large-scale construction projects, as designers and builders, emboldened by new technology and pressured to address a growing population’s rapacious needs, push the limits of the possible? This is a story about human risk—how it is calculated, discounted, and transferred—and the institutional failures that can lead to catastrophe. Suspenseful yet humane, Trapped Under the Sea reminds us that behind every bridge, tower, and tunnel—behind the infrastructure that makes modern life possible—lies unsung bravery and extraordinary sacrifice.
From Jennifer Mathieu, the author of The Truth About Alice comes a novel about the courage to believe and what it means to be truly devoted. Rachel Walker is devoted to God. She prays every day, attends Calvary Christian Church with her family, helps care for her five younger siblings, dresses modestly, and prepares herself to be a wife and mother who serves the Lord with joy. But Rachel is curious about the world her family has turned away from, and increasingly finds that neither the church nor her homeschool education has the answers she craves. Rachel has always found solace in her beliefs, but now she can't shake the feeling that her devotion might destroy her soul.
From bestselling team James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, Nina Bloom must confront the killer she thought she escaped forever to save the life of an innocent man. The perfect life A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would do anything to protect the life she's built in New York--including lying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when an innocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can't let him pay for the real killer's crimes. The perfect lie Nina's secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for, a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West. When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, her happiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina's world is shattered when she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for her life and change her identity. The perfect way to die Now, years later, Nina risks everything she's earned to return to Florida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story of wrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his most head-spinning, action-filled story yet--a Hitchcock-like blend of unquenchable drama and pleasure.
"When Allie, Vic, and their friend, Max, are mysteriously sent back in time to the Titanic, they have to find a way to save their parents' shop, save their futures, and get off the ship before it sinks! Join them as they explore the Titanic in its prime and attempt to find their way back to the present!" --
