And She Was
Publisher Wm Morrow, February 2006
Fusing past and present, a fierce new novelist pens a remarkable debut novel of courage across time and culture, set amid the stark beauty of the Aleutian Islands – an heir to the classics Clan of the Cave Bear and Shipping News, but with a female protagonist as engaging and modern as Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum.
There are more than two hundred islands in the Alaskan Aleutian Chain, but only a handful are inhabited. And those islands harbor a dark secret…
Brandy, a transient blonde cocktail waitress follows her latest fling, a fisherman, to a remote boomtown in the Aleutian Islands, where she brushes against the ghosts of an ancient conspiracy. While her boyfriend is at sea, she slings drinks at the infamous Elbow Room Bar and avoids thinking about her history of failed relationships and the emptiness in her life. But despite her determination to keep the world at bay, the island’s secrets follow Brandy – in bathroom graffiti, in the faces of old Aleut women, and in the violence washing over the island. .
In parallel stories, Cindy Dyson chronicles Brandy’s life in the Aleutians, and introduces readers to successive generations of Aleut women who have shared their ancestors’ tragic and heroic obligations, until past and present fuse, and set one cocktail waitress free. A fascinating novel of taboos, conquest and shifting identity, And She Was is a haunting read that introduces an edgy and promising new talent.
“… Dyson skillfully interconnects Brandy’s eerie personal journey with the history of the region (both actual and supernatural), culminating in a ghostly lesson in self-discovery.”
— Entertainment Weekly B+
