The Gin Girl - Softcover

River Jordan is a playwright and an avid promoter of the written word. She lives between the swamps and saltwaters of the Florida Gulf Coast where she spends her time contemplating quantum physics and other mystical realities.

Jordan is the creator of the mythical storyteller, Mama Jewels. She serves on the Foundation Board for the Northwest Florida Regional Library and for the Florida Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers. She is a founding member of the West Florida Playwrights Project. Jordan is the mother of two courageous sons—Nick and Chris—and wife of Owen Hicks, a superhero in disguise.

Jordan vividly evokes the steamy, tropical climate of Toliquilah, a Gulf Coast island in North Florida, as she recounts the adventures of Mary, a local who returns home to search for her high-school sweetheart, Joe. Mary has been drifting and drinking Jack Daniels all over the South since her father's death, but she is obsessed with memories of Joe. None of the island's strange inhabitants--including a one-armed diner cook, a liquor-store proprietor who speaks in riddles, and an old blind woman who milks snakes--knows what really happened to Joe, but most assume he is dead, probably murdered. Mary's investigation raises as many questions as it answers and causes almost as much upheaval as the hurricane that strikes the region while she searches for clues. The plot moves as slowly as the air in the swamps, but those who crave atmosphere rather than action will find much to savor in this humid thriller. Barbara Bibel
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