High Tide for $3.99!

I mentioned this in my September translation overview post, but for those who missed it, we’re currently selling the ebook version of High Tide for $3.99.

The book itself—which is amazing, more on that below—officially releases on September 26th. So, this week the ebook is $3.99, next week it’ll be $5.99, then $7.99, reaching it’s normal full $9.99 list price on the day that the print version comes out.

In other words, you should buy yours now.

It’s not up on iBookstore yet, because Apple is slow, but here are the other links: Amazon, Nook, and Kobo.

Translated by Kaija Straumanis, our editor and one of the first graduates of the University of Rochester MA in literary translation program, High Tide is one of the first Latvian novels to be published in America. Ābele, a contemporary playwright, poet, and novelist, was featured in Dalkey’s Best European Fiction anthology, where Aleksandar Hemon referred to her as a “sharp realist.”

Here’s the jacket copy:

Told more or less in reverse chronological order, High Tide is the story of Ieva, her dead lover, her imprisoned husband, and the way their youthful decisions dramatically impacted the rest of their lives. Taking place over three decades, High Tide functions as a sort of psychological mystery, with the full scope of Ieva’s personal situation—and the relationship between the three main characters—only becoming clear at the end of the novel.

One of Latvia’s most notable young writers, Ābele is a fresh voice in European fiction—her prose is direct, evocative, and exceptionally beautiful. The combination of strikingly lush descriptive writing with the precision with which she depicts the minds of her characters elevates this novel from a simple story of a love triangle into a fascinating, philosophical, haunting book.

On a more personal note, our local international book club read and discussed this last week, and everyone unanimously loved it. In fact, one participate read it all the day of the book club and wept—on several occasions. This book is powerful, beautiful, and provides a sense of Latvia without being too wedded to the history or politics of the country.

Casey O’Neil at Elliott Bay Book Company is a huge fan of the book as well, and even wrote up this blurb:

Starting with the end and moving back toward the beginning, we follow Ieva as experience washes over her, as love transforms over time, as traumatic events wreak havoc forever even as they’re over in an instant. The book’s reverse trajectory both accentuates and softens the trauma, as our knowledge of what’s about to happen interacts with our experience of each moment. Ābele’s rendering of Ieva’s endurance is both matter of fact and transcendent, making this a novel that brings real light to real darkness. Its moving finale actually brought me to tears.

Point being, this book baller and you should buy it for $3.99. Right now.