I’ll guarantee one thing about Charlene D’Avanzo’s new novel, Secrets Haunt the Lobster Sea, designed and produced by Maine Authors Publishing: you will not figure out the murderer until Charlene discloses it. You might think you know, but you won’t.
I enjoy lots of things about Charlene’s novels featuring Mara Tusconi, an ocean scientist. The plots and characters are intriguing, the dialogue very realistic (including our Maine dialect), and I always learn a lot about Maine’s ocean and the critters that live there.
That’s because Charlene is a marine ecologist and award-winning environmental educator who has studied the Maine coast for more than 40 years. She’s an avid sea kayaker who lives on Little John Island in Yarmouth.
I learned a lot about lobsters in her new novel and appreciated that climate change is an important part of the plot. Knowing something about the serious impacts of climate change on Maine’s oceans and ocean critters, and having spent time on several Maine islands, I found Charlene’s novel very anchored in reality.
Well, except for that murder (I hope)!