Sea Creatures

In Sea Creatures, a riveting domestic drama by Susanna Daniel, a mother must make the unthinkable choice between her husband and her son.
 
When Georgia Qullian returns to her hometown of Miami, her toddler and husband in tow, she is hoping for a fresh start. They have left Illinois trailing scandal and disappointment in their wake, fallout from her husband’s severe sleep disorder. For months, their three-year-old son has refused to speak a word.
 
On a whim, Georgia takes a job as an errand runner for a reclusive artist and is surprised at how her life changes dramatically. But soon the family’s challenges return, more complicated than before. Late that summer, as a hurricane bears down on South Florida, Georgia must face the fact that her decisions have put her only child in grave danger.

Sea Creatures is a mesmerizing exploration of the high stakes of marriage and parenthood.

When Georgia Quillian returns to her hometown of Miami, her husband, Graham, and their young son in tow, she is hoping for a fresh start. The family has fled Illinois trailing scandal and disappointment, the fallout from Graham's severe sleep disorder and Georgia's failed business. To make matters worse, their charming three-year-old son, Frankie, has for months refused to speak a word.

Although Georgia is still grieving her mother's death from five years earlier, her father and stepmother offer warm welcome—and a slip for the dilapidated houseboat Georgia and Graham have chosen to call home. On a lark, Georgia takes a job as an errand runner for a reclusive artist who lives in the middle of the bay, and she soon finds that time spent with the intense hermit might help Frankie find the courage to speak, and might also help her reconcile the woman she was with the woman she has become.

But when Graham leaves to work on a research vessel in Hurricane Alley, and the truth behind Frankie's mutism is revealed, the family's challenges return, more complicated than before. As a hurricane bears down on South Florida later that summer, Georgia must face the fact that her choices have put her only child in grave danger.

Sea Creatures is a mesmerizing exploration of the high stakes of marriage and parenthood, the story of a woman forced to choose between her husband, her child, and the possibility of new love.

“While Miami has inspired its satirical works of genius, chilling mystery novels and excellent accounts of Cuban exile, we’ve mostly run short on first-rate literature that takes the city seriously enough to capture its eccentricities without flinching....Daniel, with Sea Creatures, gets it absolutely pitch perfect.” - Miami Herald

“A sophisticated story that holds the reader rapt….[Daniel] sets up each scene in Sea Creatures with masterful strokes….She builds momentum from the opening chapter, leading up to the crescendo….Daniel drives into tumultuous waters and emerges with a mesmerizing, beautiful novel.” - Wisconsin State Journal

“Utterly enthralling…. [Sea Creatures is] about love, loss, and longing in their most familiar forms. Brace yourself: you’ll fall hard for the characters, and your heart will break preemptively-even before the hurricane blows through.” - More.com

“Susanna Daniel brings an uncommon intimacy to her characters’ lives, and also to the landscape where those lives unfold-a cartographer not only of the shore and the ocean but of the passions, bruises, joys, and insufficiencies of the human heart.” - Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead

“A tender tale of a woman navigating the responsibilities and risks of parenthood.” - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“An intelligent page-turner (that is, the dream combination) about, among other things, South Florida, art, insomnia, and marriage.” - Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep and Sisterland

“Daniel’s writing is rich in description—of both its lush Florida settings and her characters’ emotional landscapes—that draws the reader in.” - Isthmus Review

“Sea Creatures is perfect for summer reading, a more literary offering than your usual beach fare. Author Susanna Daniel crafts beautiful, dreamy descriptions of ocean life that threaten to lull readers into a sense of complacency.” - The Daily News Journal (Tennessee)

“There’s a charmer at the heart of Sea Creatures….Almost like an action-filled, emotional memoir….Gripping.” - Associated Press

“What I found most stirring in Sea Creatures is how deftly Daniels exposes one of the most agonizing realities of parenthood: that no matter how hard we try, or how endless our love for our children, we are hampered by our own limitations, sometimes even tragically.” - Helen Schulman, author of This Beautiful Life

“Don’t confuse the waterfront setting with light beach reading; this is substantive domestic drama…readers interested in families coping with disabilities will find Frankie particularly compelling as he navigates changing relationships and obstacles.” - Library Journal

“A sophisticated story that holds the reader rapt….[Daniel] sets up each scene in Sea Creatures with masterful strokes….She builds momentum from the opening chapter, leading up to the crescendo….Daniel drives into tumultuous waters and emerges with a mesmerizing, beautiful novel.” - Jeanna Kolker, Wisconsin State Journal

“Utterly enthralling….[Sea Creatures is] about love, loss, and longing in their most familiar forms. Brace yourself: you’ll fall hard for the characters, and your heart will break preemptively-even before the hurricane blows through.” - Catherine Newman, More.com

“Daniel returns to Stiltsville’s South Florida in a second novel filled with domestic upheaval, difficult choices, and far-reaching consequences….Daniel’s verdant descriptions of salt and sea continue to shine, as does her portrayal of a mother struggling to protect her son.” - Publishers Weekly

“Uses lyrical story-telling to relate profound truths about the attachments we form in life-to people, to places, and to notions of who we are-and how those attachments, formed in happy times, sustain us through the hard times. . . . Daniel’s writing is lovely and unaffected, honest and open. . . . Stiltsville is a compelling portrait of a marriage, a sweet serenade to Southern Florida, and a moving account of a woman’s life.” - Nina Sankovitch, Huffington Post

“A captivating, haunting novel about the complexities of the human heart and its attachments, terrain as slippery and beautiful and disaster prone as Daniel’s South Florida.” - Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

“Susanna Daniel’s powers of creation are so vast, and the South Floridian landscape she describes so vivid, that this life-long Manhattanite briefly thought of hurricane-proofing her own windows. But what I found most stirring in Sea Creatures is how deftly Daniel exposes one of the most agonizing realities of parenthood: that no matter how hard we try, or how endless our love for our children may be, we are hampered by our own limitations, sometimes even tragically.” - Helen Schulman, author of This Beautiful Life