Anna Burke’s Spindrift

Years ago, I went on a ghost tour of Portland, Maine with my girlfriend at the time. We were both from New England, we both liked horror movies and eerie fiction. So it all seemed like a no-brainer. It was a cool night, and the tour guide was a bald man in a sweater and a sports jacket. Downtown Portland had cobble streets. The ocean spray mixed with the smell of cooking meat and heady beer with every gastropub we passed. As the part-time actor regaled us with mostly fictitious murders and accidental deaths, I thought to myself, This has got to be the most New England thing ever. 

Then a pair of young women passed us. They were holdouts of the Hot Topic version of punk, with black band tees, huge leather boots, and impressively vivid hair—one's was electrically pink in the dim summer evening.

"Are you on a tour?" one of them asked, like she could hardly believe it. The other laughed so hard she seemed to be in pain. "Are you on a tour of Portland? But this place is shit!" If it was shit, they seemed to be enjoying themselves just fine

The tour guide might have been rankled, but I loved it. And I thought, immediately, Okay, I take it back. Maybe that's the most New England thing ever.  

I love New England. I know it's got a flaws, but I am decidedly That Guy. I love a shawl collar sweater. I love hot cider on a cold (but not too cold) day. I love it when the leaves turn. All that stuff.

So I mean it as high praise when I say that Anna Burke's Spindrift is one of the most New England things ever. It's tight, well-paced, introspective romance about two lesbian veterinarians in a small coastal town in Maine. But that's only one thing that might strike you as deeply, well, New England-y. But more than this, I think, is the relationship between character and setting. It's extremely well-developed, and I think speaks to some big parts of the New England experience—a backdrop that, for me, made the central romance of the novel more impactful.

Emilia Russo is our main character. She's lost her father, Ray, and recently had a personal and professional breakdown. As a shelter veterinarian, she's had to deal with a dwindling budget even as she's had to put down animals. She comes to Seal Cove with her dog, Nell, with the plan to sell her father's house.

Morgan Donovan is a large animal vet, living with her best friends in a big ol' house in Seal Cove. But she's had her heart broken by a fiancé who, in the end, couldn't deal with the way Morgan's job takes up most of her life. Morgan has a great cadre of friends that rounds out the whole cast—but even they understand that Morgan is deeply wounded by her fiancé's rejection.

It's a romance, so you can guess that sparks fly when the two meet. But what really struck me was how Seal Cove felt very real to me, and how it impacts both characters. Emilia is still grieving her father, and staying in his house brings that powerfully to the fore—even as she learns to rediscover the quiet, calm life of a small Maine beach town. Morgan's life is raucous and energetic by comparison, living in proximity to her best friends—all professional vets, mostly drowning in student loans, but in love with their work, their pets, and each other. Both of these are kind of classic New England set-ups, I think, but more importantly these landscapes provide both stress and relief for our heroines.

Reading Spindrift and visiting Seal Cove was delightful. It made me feel like I got the nice Maine vacation I couldn't have this summer (pandemic, etc.). And it offered a warm, heartfelt story that offers a take at once familiar and fresh on something I find very important right now: that love can help heal some of our worst wounds.  

And it reminded me of that tour guide, and those girls laughing at us, and how home can be more than one thing.