By Chance

July 7, 2008
Corrick follows his promising debut (The Navigation Log
) with another intricate novel where readers must work to detect the story within a sparse yet elegant narrative. This time the setting is contemporary England, the protagonist a man whose life passes quietly until an extraordinary event strikes. James Watson Bolsover is first seen seated on a dock, waiting for a ferry. Raised by parents who leave him their house and little else, Bolsover, at age 20, finds his home and income as a technical writer enough to attract a delicate 19-year-old wife, Katherine. Bolsover tries to work out what love and life are about as he puzzles over his bride's budding passion. After 16 years, he becomes a widower, adding grief to the emotions he experiences without understanding. An accident in middle age then propels him into the nightmare that puts him on the dock. Corrick proves as meticulous as Bolsover at crafting a story that will send readers racing back to reread so they can retrace Bolsover's steps and savor Corrick's language.

September 1, 2008
In late middle age, James Bolsover journeys by ferry over a stormy sea to a remote English island to start his life over again. What has brought him and the other guests of the Alpha Hotel into the care of their stalwart Greek innkeeper remains a mystery. In his earlier life, Bolsover enjoyed work as a technical writer for an engineering firm, owned a cottage with a well-tended garden, and had a happy marriage to the pretty but frail Katherine. When Katherine dies young and his firm goes into decline, Bolsover sells his home and reinvents himself as a freelance writer. But all that is behind him as he seeks sanctuary at the Alpha and, through his friendship with a fellow lodger, slowly reveals the twists of fate that have brought him there. The story of Katherine's sexual awakening is only one of the many ways in which this intensely satisfying novel surprises and enchants at every turn. From the author of "The Navigation Log"; warmly recommended.Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Kingston, Ont.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2008
Plunked down in the shabby Alpha Hotel on an unidentified island somewhere off the English coast with a deceptively ordinary group of misfits, James Watson Bolsover is provided the opportunity to reflect on the odd twists and turns that have brought him there. A quietly unremarkable middle-aged man, Bolsover realizes that the motivation for the few exceptional things he has done in his life are clear only in hindsight. Following his parents deaths, for starters, Bolsover was saved from bland obscurity by Kitty, a fragile, ethereal beauty who astonished everyonenot least of all Bolsover himselfby falling in love with him. Her death at an early age, however, set into motion a string of transformative events that culminated in an accident that earned Bolsover the bloodthirsty attention of a vengeful mobster. Both spirited and restrained, Corricks exquisitely nuanced portrait of a man who must learn to make peace with the most essential aspects of his character is an enchanting and quixotic performance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)