A sinister, summer-time thriller

"Sea Wife" by Amity Gaige

This week, we’re boarding the “Juliet” with the Parlows, a couple with a fraying marriage who take their young children to sea on a sailboat for six months.
From the beginning, Amity Gaige, the author, drops clues that something dark awaits at the end of this sun-dazzled, idyllic adventure. Indeed, the book opens as Juliet Parlow asks, “Where does a mistake begin? Did my mistake begin with the boat? Or my marriage itself?” And it dawns on us that where four Parlows went to sea, only three returned.
The narrative alternates between Juliet’s voice and her husband Michael’s. We eavesdrop on Michael’s frustration with Juliet’s dreaminess — she’s a poet, after all — and her slow adaptation to life at sea.

We learn that Juliet is disappointed with her husband’s judgments and secretiveness. In fact, he’s bought the boat in a somewhat shady deal that he’s never explained to Juliet.

I knew I’d love the travel adventurousness of this novel, but I thought I’d be bored with the details of what it takes to actually get a sailboat from Point A to Point B. But I wasn’t.

Gaige’s expertise about sailing — whether researched or acquired as a sailor herself — never feels forced or academic. And there are wonderful, jewel-like moments of discovery as they linger in the beautiful, sometimes unnamed isles of the Caribbean.

My Thread Thriller Must-Read this week is Amity Gaige’s “Sea Wife.”

— Kerri Miller