Anchors of the Soul
A Novel
by
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Serena The Serena Marie was Pop's boat. Twin engine, double hulled and built just up Route 133 in Ipswich. Pop used to say she was the Unsinkable Serena Marie. It's weird to navigate a boat with your own name on it, but I have no choice. I inherited the name with the boat. Changing the name of any boat is playing with fate. The bed is comfortable no matter how old. I stretch myself out long and luxuriously on top of the covers that hide the ancient mattress. It is silly to stay here when I could go to Grandma's with all the creature comforts, but there’s something about the shack, some reassuring quality that makes what I said to Gwen almost true. It is a home to me with memories, good and bad. Bad when Frankie Haskell came home early with a thousand pounds of swordfish only to find his wife fucking Harry Travaglione. Scary to see him staggering into the shack, falling over his boots and crying in his beer like that. Bad when we watched the town pier burn right into the harbor, fireboats spraying futile streams into the flames. Bad when the Jenny M. didn't come home, or the Andrea Gale or the Jezebel. Bad when we saw the wreaths of so many father's and sons floating to our docks. But, tonight, I want to remember the good. The good was in the arms of my father. Gwen Cloud cover and salty air augment the sound of the siren careening down the street. When it stops abruptly in front of our house I look up to see a red pulsating light on the living room wall. It’s strange they should park here, we have no emergency. Then again, Granite Shores Police are known for using their sirens for any reason at all. Tim says they will blast them to clear the streets just to get home on time for dinner. I imagine today it’s the Police Fund Drive, that annual extortion of Granite Shores’ citizens forced to contribute to the Police Benevolent Fund. In this town, you wouldn’t want your car stickerless when you miss a stop sign. I don’t intend to turn around and disturb the tidy pile of luncheon invitations balanced on my lap. "Tim, is anything serious going on out there? For heavens sake, they don’t have to leave that awful light on."
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About the Book
Told from two perspectives, Anchors of the Soul is a tale of secrets, lust and intrigue, where life can be seen on a purely physical plane or as a magical series of events. Call it witch-craft, call it superstition, call it holy, when belief is present, all things are possible Living on the shore in Massachusetts, Serena Tesorerio and Gwen Townsend. have loved the same men yet never met. When they do, their lives are dramatically changed. Serena, raised by her father, is a bright, sexy, independent spirit who fights bravely to survive her losses. Gwen, twice Serena’s age, has worked hard to be the quintessential wife and mother. Shocked by the disappearance of her husband and paralyzed emotionally, Gwen meets Serena and falls under her spell. This is a story of the struggle between dependence and independence and the complexity of women becoming themselves.
About the Author
As a woman of words, and mother of four daughters, St. John has an invested interest in the evolving state of women. In Anchors of the Soul, she draws upon her own adventures in post-revolutionary Nicaragua and the time she spent as an artist on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Her characters and their circumstances, however, are purely fiction. Born in Brooklyn, educated in upstate New York and Boston, St. John currently paints and writes in Tubac, Arizona.