book cover of Spring Thaw
 

Spring Thaw

(1989)
A novel by

 
 
By S.L. Stebel, with an afterward by Ray Bradbury

When Jason Melman, a troubled young sea captain eager to prove his manhood, takes command of his father's sealing ship, he embarks on a voyage of personal and spiritual discovery. During a blizzard that fatally disrupts the seal hunt, Jason encounters a beautiful, ethereal woman who may or may not actually exist. Insisting that the phantom saved his life, Jason is relieved of his command by his curiously hostile first mate, and remains under lock and key while the crew grows restless to resume the hunt. When Jason learns that his own father had been brought back from these hunting grounds in chains, raving mad, and the local inhabitants insist that the woman he thought he saw is long dead, Jason is left with nothing but the past to help him unravel the mystery of the elusive Mirabelle.

This is a rousing adventure of the far north, of men who risk their lives simply to survive and who are driven to violent conflict by superstition and fear. It is a story of the supernatural that resonates with echoes of great ghost tales of the past. It is a brilliantly told evocation of one of the most inaccessible spots on the globe, a geography and sea-scape that infuses the story with a haunting, dreamlike quality. And it is a contemporary fable of mythic proportion that explores the depths of the human heart.


Genre: Thriller

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