"Dazzling...[a] quirky, raucous, and bewitching family saga." —Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants
Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone in a house that is slowly crumbling toward the Long Island Sound. His parents are long dead. His mother, a circus mermaid who made her living by holding her breath, drowned in the very water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, ran off six years ago and now reads tarot cards for a traveling carnival.
One June day, an old book arrives on Simon's doorstep, sent by an antiquarian bookseller who purchased it on speculation. Fragile and water damaged, the book is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of "mermaids" in Simon's family have drowned—always on July 24, which is only weeks away.
As his friend Alice looks on with alarm, Simon becomes increasingly worried about his sister. Could there be a curse on Simon's family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he get to the heart of the mystery in time to save Enola?
In the tradition of Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, and Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's moving debut novel about the power of books, family, and magic.
- New eBook Additions
- Adult New Readers
- Shelf Care
- Have Book Will Travel
- Five Star Stories
- Local History
- Exercise & Fitness
- Book to Screen
- Vacation Interrupted
- Disability Visibility
- Standalone Graphic Novels
- Short Reads
- Historical Fiction
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- New Audiobook Additions
- Listen to the Classics
- Full Cast Audiobooks
- Great Narrators
- Try Something Different
- 5-10 Hours Long
- Fears for Your Ears
- Perfect for Day Trips
- Find Your Chill
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- Italian Magazines
- Learn the History of....
- Lets Eat!
- Life Magazine
- Magazines for Kids
- People Magazine
- Space: The Final Frontier
- Détendez-vous et lisez (Relax and Read)
- Deutschsprachige Zeitschriften
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