Hopeless, Maine: Book One: Personal Demons

Description

Welcome to Hopeless, Maine. It is a place cut off from the rest of the world and lost in time. Strange things swim in the sea surrounding the island. Things even stranger float in the air and observe the lives of the island inhabitants, who may in fact be the strangest creatures of all. Into this setting comes Salamandra, a child who is not a child, and a user of great magic who is not a witch. (She insists on this distinction.) In this first volume, Salamandra comes of age and finds her way through the new complexities of friendship while coming to terms with her powers and origins. For lovers of the gothic, nearly every trope is explored and turned on its head. For lovers of creatures, there are many. For those who want their magic real and complex, this is the story for you. Don't stroll the shoreline after dark unaccompanied and mind the tentacles!

Nimue Brown writes across a number of forms and genres. With artist husband Tom Brown, she creates graphic novel series Hopeless Maine, and is involved with the Professor Elemental comic. Nimue writes books on Druidry for Moon Books, and fiction for various houses. She tends towards speculative and magical realism, but about the only thing she hasn't tried is writing for television and political thrillers. Her influences are diverse--Hayao Miyazaki, George Eliot, Neil Gaiman, Isabelle Allende, Michael Ondaatje, Clive Barker, Charles de Lint Robert Holdstock...to name but a few. She is drawn to mystery, to the numinous, and to work that has the power to uplift and inspire. Nimue and Tom Brown share a love of gothic decay, poetry, wild landscapes, and strange creatures. They have been collaborating for years, brought together initially by a publishing house. In the summer of 2009 they launched The Hopeless Vendetta--a weekly newspaper charting life on the fictional island of Hopeless.