Yellow Sky, Emerald Sea

This contemporary story, threaded with powerful hurricane-day vignettes of death and survival, is a resonant tale of love, ambition, loss, and the rich legacy of time and memory.

September 21, 1938 That day of hell and grace….

Readers whose tastes run to Anne Tyler, Alexander McCall Smith, and Rita Mae Brown will enjoy this feel-good contemporary story honoring the survivors of the Hurricane of 1938 in Rhode Island. In this literary, yet fast-paced tale laced with intrigue, corruption, and romance, protagonist Vieve Clough Beale, portrait artist, recovering alcoholic, and widow with storm wreckage of a different sort, arrives on the Weekapaug Coast in the run-up to the 80th anniversary of the hurricane. What Vieve finds as she delves into preparations for the town’s storm commemoration and the increasingly threatening activities at an abandoned coastal fort tests her loyalties and upends her future just as the town begins to face its own memories of pain and grace.

1938—A deadly hurricane bludgeons New England’s south coast with no warning. On a sandy point straddling Rhode Island and Connecticut, all the summer houses—with their owners clinging to roofs—blow into the bay. The next day, an aspiring reporter picks up a pen to interview his surviving neighbors. Will their memories survive?

2018—Acclaimed portrait artist, recovering alcoholic, and widow Vieve Clough Beale visits Ponkipaug Point, RI, for dinner with her beloved Uncle Carl, retired jewelry magnate. When he doesn’t show, Vieve—accompanied by her feisty terrier mix, Jack West—stay on to search for him. Vieve accepts an invitation from charismatic acrylic artist Marley Kinnell to compete together in a mural competition for the hurricane’s eightieth anniversary commemoration.

Haunted by her own memories of her dead second husband and missing uncle, Vieve is alarmed by her growing attraction to Marley. Meanwhile, Vieve’s childhood nemesis reappears to complicate her life. As the two artists race to finish the mural in time, Vieve must deal with her own painful memories and new threats to the town. And then her beloved terrier goes missing. Can Vieve find ground again within the swirling emotions of love, loss, and danger in her life? Can she and Marley finish the mural to help the town find peace from its devastating past?