From Powells.com
Staff Pick
Alexis Smith's second book is a suspenseful page-turner. We meet Lucie Bowen after she has survived an attempt on her life. Set on the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest, Marrow Island isn't your usual suspense fare. Aside from being the place where Lucie loses her father, now her best friend is entangled in some sort of (eco-terrorist?) group that has set up a commune on the island. Addressing environmental issues, family loss, broken friendships, and cult behavior, Marrow Island is a quick-paced, riveting read. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Twenty years after a great earthquake has changed life dramatically in the Pacific Northwest, two Puget Sound childhood friends reconvene on Marrow Island, where colonists may have found a secret to rebuilding ecosystems. Marrow Island is a graceful, beautifully written, surprising, and suspenseful novel from Alexis Smith, author of Glaciers (and former Powell's employee!). Recommended By Jill O., Powells.com
A wonderfully bewitching story, Alexis M. Smith's second book is as amazing as her first. This novel weaves together her skill with character and a delicious thread of intrigue and mystery. The voice is simply beautiful, and I can't wait to reread this one. Recommended By Dano H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
What would you give to save the thing you love the most?
It has been twenty years since Lucie Bowen left the islands. Twenty years ago, the May Day Quake set loose catastrophic waves along the west coast, from Alaska to California, shattering thousands of lives. Twenty years ago, Lucie’s father disappeared in an explosion at the Marrow Island oil refinery, a tragedy that destroyed the island’s ecosystem and sent Lucie and her mother to the mainland to start anew. Twenty years ago, Lucie and her best friend, Katie, were just Puget Sound children, tucked up under their desks, hovering under mylar sheets, hoping to survive.
Now, Katie writes with strange and miraculous news. Marrow Island is no longer uninhabitable, no longer abandoned. She is part of a community, a mysterious Colony, that has, somehow, conjured life again from Marrow’s soil. Lucie returns. Her journalist instincts tell her there’s more to the Colony and their charismatic leader—a former nun with an all-consuming plan—than its members want her to know. The island’s astonishing rebirth seems to have come at great cost—perhaps to the colonists themselves. As she uncovers their secrets, will Lucie endanger more than their mission? What price will she pay for the truth?
I was always a part of you, and you were always a part of me, Katie writes. And in this marvelously spun story Alexis Smith reaches into the depths of our connections to our pasts, our loved ones, our devotions. Our choices may bring us to the brink, but within our promises to each other and our hopes for the future, at the intersection of science and faith and grace, there may well be miracles in the making.
Review
"Atmospheric, intense, and mysterious - Alexis Smith's Marrow Island is a smart novel, richly peopled and lyrically written. Smith is a writer genuinely at home in the natural world, and willing to write truth, darkness, and beauty into the island landscape. She understands well how environmental pressure translates into human pressure and loss. An important, gripping book." Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Almost Famous Women
Review
"Wrenching and limpidly written...Smith is excellent at showing the terrible things people can do for the sake of their ideals...A near-perfect read." Library Journal
Review
"[Marrow Island] is weird and glorious and I loved it. Different from Glaciers, but still wonderful. Marrow Island is about a journalist who returns to her home island to possibly report on a sketchy environmental colony that has set up residence on the island, and to visit her childhood best friend, who is one of the colony’s residents." BookRiot, "Our Most Anticipated Reads of 2016"
Review
"A compelling, complex meditation on both the power and the vulnerability of the natural world." Booklist
Review
"A stunning novel about sacrifice for the sake of survival in the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters...In graceful and dolorous prose, she captures a dense and dramatic landscape, evoking questions of what it means to harm -- ourselves, our surroundings -- and to heal. Engrossing eco-fiction, eerie and earnest." Kirkust
Review
"Smith's excellent command of language gives life to arresting characters and their creepy surroundings, keeping the suspense in this dark environmental thriller running high." Elle, "19 Summer Books That Everyone Will Be Talking About"
Synopsis
What would you give to save the thing you love the most?
It has been twenty years since Lucie Bowen left the islands. Twenty years ago, the May Day Quake set loose catastrophic waves along the west coast, from Alaska to California, shattering thousands of lives. Twenty years ago, Lucie's father disappeared in an explosion at the Marrow Island oil refinery, a tragedy that destroyed the island's ecosystem and sent Lucie and her mother to the mainland to start anew. Twenty years ago, Lucie and her best friend, Katie, were just Puget Sound children, tucked up under their desks, hovering under mylar sheets, hoping to survive.
Now, Katie writes with strange and miraculous news. Marrow Island is no longer uninhabitable, no longer abandoned. She is part of a community, a mysterious Colony, that has, somehow, conjured life again from Marrow's soil. Lucie returns. Her journalist instincts tell her there's more to the Colony and their charismatic leader--a former nun with an all-consuming plan--than its members want her to know. The island's astonishing rebirth seems to have come at great cost--perhaps to the colonists themselves. As she uncovers their secrets, will Lucie endanger more than their mission? What price will she pay for the truth?
I was always a part of you, and you were always a part of me, Katie writes. And in this marvelously spun story Alexis Smith reaches into the depths of our connections to our pasts, our loved ones, our devotions. Our choices may bring us to the brink, but within our promises to each other and our hopes for the future, at the intersection of science and faith and grace, there may well be miracles in the making.
Synopsis
"Excellent...Smith’s story carries the same heft, descriptive nuance, and narrative spark that distinguished her debut [Glaciers], but this time, she more finely hones her characters’ emotional rhythm and atmospheric location to create a thoroughly eerie reading experience capped off with a startling conclusion." Publishers Weekly (Starred and Boxed Review)
About the Author
Alexis M. Smith was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She attended Mount Holyoke College, Portland State University, and Goddard College. Her debut novel, Glaciers, was a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award and a selection for World Book Night 2013. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her son.