Showing results by author "David Donavel" in All Categories

When Eddie Samson’s pitch drops Jason Fitzgerald to the mud in the Jamaica Plain ballpark, Eddie panics and runs and Eddie’s teammates, Will and Frankie Kerns run, with him. The boys think little of the incident at first, but later, when Jason dies and the Boston media seize on the death as an irresistible story, the panicked running continues and events spiral out of control until they end in a strange mix of tragedy and joy.

From the first moment they meet, Eddie Beckwith could abide Rick Porter, the young child psychologist his daughter, Jenny, has brought home from Boston. Eddie is convinced that it is Porter’s plan to destroy the Beckwith family and as his wife Abby argues in Porter’s behalf, the more convinced is Eddie that Porter is achieving his aim. When Eddie descends into a terrible silence and Porter is caught in bed with another woman, both marriages hover on the brink of dissolution. Eddie’s desperate gambit at the end ironically heals where he intended harm. Whether the healing will last, ...

Partial heir to the the immense family fortune, Sylvester Beal, reclusive, alcoholic, and profoundly greedy, employs Rudy Clarke to travel to East Bentley New Hampshire and there murder his sister in order to have the entire inheritance to himself. Clarke takes on a partner, Johnny Kelso and together they determine that Beal can pay much more than he bargained for and while they all wait for the estate to be settled, Aaron Perkins of the East Bentley police department slowly closes in on the killers. For his scheme to succeed, Beal must find a way to eliminate Clarke and Kelso and deflect ...

Recently divorced and lonely, high school English teacher Mitchell Harper is intrigued when a pair of attractive woman move into the flat below his but is disappointed to learn that the two are gay. Rosie, a trainer at the local health club is stunningly beautiful and has little use for Harper who she says talks too much. Her partner, Emily, a librarian, nevertheless strikes up a friendship with him. She enjoys his jokes and his interest in books and comes to feel so at home in with him that she imagines they could marry if her inclinations were different. As the intimacy between Mitch and ...

When the girl in the window waves to Henry Parker, he feels as if a seam in the fabric of experience has opened, welcoming him to a new exciting life and that promise seems almost fulfilled when that same day he meets the dark and seductive Jennifer Lacey, friend of Cyril and Valiant, the painter Ricky and others who seem to occupy a world of haunted enchantment. But because he is young and short of confidence, Henry is unsure he will ever fit into Jennifer’s world, drawn as he is. His alternative is the light and enticing Kate Rodgers whose insistence that our day-to-day lives are shot ...

Called to his hometown on family business, Richard Branch, almost seventy years old, visits the house in which he grew up, now inhabited by another family. That visit triggers in him memories of his parents and an increasing curiosity about what their lives might have been like and what those lives, and by extension, his own, might mean. In his quest he discovers the existence of a half brother, the product of his father’s adultery, a revelation that, at last, raises more questions than it answers. At his side, Beanie, his patient wife, listens, counsels, banters and, in the end, helps ...

Stunningly beautiful and formidably intelligent, Melanie Michaels arrives at Tribourne College with the full knowledge that her beauty, compelling as it may be, will fade. Melanie’s good looks and academic success spark an incurable envy in Ellie French, an overweight and unattractive student nearly as bright as Melanie. Ellie watches as Melanie effortlessly charms Tyler Phillips, the creative star of Tribourne, the young man Ellie longs for but despairs of every having for her own. Her envy eats at her, but she sees no way to strike back at Melanie, to make her pay for her beauty. Ellie ...

In her forties, unmarried, and, by her own standards, almost homely, Penny Fragos has built a quiet life, one that brings her modest pleasure. Her work at Marcello Dodge is routine and quiet; her life in her cottage on Pine Island where she lives alone is satisfying. She reads. She visits the local wildlife sanctuary for birding and spiritual comfort and she has no reason to make changes. So it comes as a surprise that she is, or might be, actually courted by Henry Chambers with whom she works, and by Owen Wallace, who she meets at a party. The rivalry, if that’s what it is amuses her. ...

Even after Janie, Ethan’s gay friend, explains that Mia left him because he would not take his own idea of marriage seriously, he doesn’t get it. Why, he wonders, should that make such a difference? Why does that keep her from answering his messages, returning his calls? And so, after some months, even as he still misses Mia, he starts a relationship with Katie Peterson. But then, Katie out of town, he runs into her roommate, Alice, drinking with friends and, as he would say, one thing leads to another and they end up in Alice’s bed. Janie scolds him but he still doesn’t understand ...

When Ben Ferris finds himself powerfully attracted to Iris Elliot, he warns himself to be careful. Happily married, he has no desire to pursue the beautiful Iris and damage his relationship with his wife, Alice. But when Alice and Iris strike up a strong friendship, one that excludes Ben and the group of friends with whom they are sharing their Cape Cod vacation, he finds his desire for Iris growing along with envy of the relationship the two women enjoy. Alice and Iris spend more and more time together exploring the Cape, and Ben, for his part, starts to fear that their friendship is ...

Arrogant, abrasive, vulnerable, novelist Geoffrey Snyder has alienated nearly all who know him. Eric Anderson, scion of the wealthy Andersons of Hamilton, Massachusetts, remains however a loyal friend and it is with Eric that Geoffrey spends a long summer weekend on Cape Cod. There they meet the beautiful, intelligent and inspirational Julia Meadows. Both men are drawn to her and even though Julia and Eric become romantically involved, Geoffrey cannot help but try to steal her affections. But it is only when Geoffrey discovers that his creative abilities have abandoned him, that his ...

Narrated in the present tense, Westminster is a meditation on some of the stages human beings appear to pass through as we move from youth to old age and, eventually, death. The story follows the lives of seven people, all of whom are associated with Westminster University, an imagined institution located somewhere north of Boston and not far from New Hampshire. Six of the people are paired, the youngest Patrick, a student, and his childhood sweetheart, Elaine are struggling to stabilize their relationship. The pair in middle age, Ed and Diane Fournier, are solidifying their respective ...

Looking to settle in on the outskirts of the quiet town of Valley View, the LeClair family purchases and remodels the old Johnson place. Shortly after, Susan, wife and mother, finds religion and, under the guidance of Brother Edgar, moves to Haven. Sissy LeClair, the only daughter takes the mother’s role, but she can’t keep a pair of degenerate townies from taking it into their heads that Ronnie LeClair, the youngest and mentally limited, acts as if he’s better than others. When the townies attack Ronnie outside the local store they set in motion a series of events that can only end ...

Winston House is an imagined exploration of the pleasures and the limits of immense wealth. Robbie and Janine, a teacher and a nurse, married and raising two children, visit in the course of the story Robbie’s mother Grace and his two aunts, Martha and Laura, both of whom had been married to Robbie’s wealthy and narcissistic uncle, Earl Stafford. Those visits disclose Stafford’s cruelty, a trait as if inherited from his father, his greed, and his seemingly boundless sexual appetite all of which are made possible by the vast Stafford fortune. Confronted with the fact that Robbie has ...

After Louise follows Maury Meadows, retired, a widower, as he meanders around the New England coastal town of Port Hardy He spends too much time in The Glass, the local tavern, and when he's not there, he visits the Bayside, a seaside tourist attraction with a bar of its own. He takes an interest in the local young people, but is careful not to intrude upon their privacy. Above all Meadows misses Louise, his deceased wife, and while that loss shapes his outlook, he remains a wry, sometimes wise, observer of the lives around him, including his own. After Louise is contemplative, quiet, often...

When stylish, suave, charismatic John Baker brings the beautiful Sally Thiele to Bellona Falls, New York, it appears that he has everything a man could want. The pair spend their evenings at the lakeside Car-Lea Club and their days at Baker’s shaded house overlooking Bellona Lake. When Baker is called away on business, he asks his friends to look after Sally. In his absence they learn that she has been pursued by a pair of deadly killers, Sims and Dole, hired by a group of criminals from Sally’s hometown. As Baker’s companions try to protect her from the killers, they all become ...