Monday, October 24, 2011

Mailbox Monday


Currently on a Blog Tour with a New Host Each Month



Title: Bright and Distant Shores
Author: Dominic Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: 2011
Format: Trade Paperback; Pgs 467
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: Simon and Schuster Advisory Board


Description

In the waning years of the nineteenth century there was a hunger for tribal artifacts, spawning collecting voyages from museums and collectors around the globe. In 1897, one such collector, a Chicago insurance magnate, sponsors an expedition into the South Seas to commemorate the completion of his company's new skyscraper—the world's tallest building. The ship is to bring back an array of Melanesian weaponry and handicrafts, but also several natives related by blood.

Caught up in this scheme are two orphans—Owen Graves, an itinerant trader from Chicago's South Side who has recently proposed to the girl he must leave behind, and Argus Niu, a mission houseboy in the New Hebrides who longs to be reunited with his sister. At the cusp of the twentieth century, the expedition forces a collision course between the tribal and the civilized, between two young men plagued by their respective and haunting pasts.

An epic and ambitious story that brings to mind E. L. Doctorow, with echoes of Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson, Bright and Distant Shores is a wondrous achievement by a writer known for creating compelling fiction from the fabric of history.

Opinion:

From the cover alone this is a keeper and after reading a couple paragraphs to whet my appetite, which I should not have done, I want to put down my other books and start on this one right away.

4 comments:

Serena said...

Enjoy your book...happy reading.

Mary (Bookfan) said...

I hope you love it!

Kaye said...

Ooh, I love epic stories like this. No wonder you want to just dive in and forget everything else. Enjoy!

Beth(bookaholicmom) said...

I was curious about this book! If you didn't want to put it down, it must be good.