The Invisible Husband of Frick Island ⭑⭑⭑⭑
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
US Publication: May 25, 2021
Print: 368 pages
Audio: 10 hours 46 minutes
Confetti Rating: 4 stars
REVIEW:
Book club people, take note! This is a good one.
Coleen Oakley’s latest novel will light up your senses and transport you from your reading nook to a fictional tiny patch of land off the Chesapeake Bay (inspired by the real Smith Island). Though it has less than 100 residents, “Frick Island” is chock-full of vibrant, heart-warming characters prone to gossip but also loyalty and love.
A young widow, Piper “Pipes” Parrish, lost her husband to a crab boating accident, but she goes about life as if he’s right there beside her. Rather than treating her like a weirdo, the island residents go along with it and act as if they still see him too.
Now this isn’t a story about ghosts. And surprisingly, it’s not a story about grief. It’s about supporting one another, silver linings, and second chances. Enter Anders Caldwell, a journalist and aspiring podcaster, who thinks the quirky characters of Frick and their participation in Piper’s delusions will intrigue millions of listeners as much as they have him. As he unravels the story week-to-week, he becomes more and more attached.
The Invisible Husband of Frick Island is a very sweet book with just the right mix of intrigue and romance. It could easily be made into an all-family movie, and I, for one, welcome these types of reads from time to time. Escapist, cozy fiction at its best.
My thanks to Berkley Publishing for providing a gifted copy for me to review. The Invisible Husband of Frick Island is now available.
PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:
Sometimes all you need is one person to really see you.
Piper Parrish's life on Frick Island — a tiny, remote town smack in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay — is nearly perfect. Well, aside from one pesky detail: Her darling husband, Tom, is dead. When Tom's crab boat capsized and his body wasn't recovered, Piper, rocked to the core, did a most peculiar thing: carried on as if her husband was not only still alive, but right there beside her, cooking him breakfast, walking him to the docks each morning, meeting him for their standard Friday night dinner date at the One-Eyed Crab. And what were the townspeople to do but go along with their beloved widowed Piper?
Anders Caldwell’s career is not going well. A young ambitious journalist, he’d rather hoped he’d be a national award-winning podcaster by now, rather than writing fluff pieces for a small town newspaper. But when he gets an assignment to travel to the remote Frick Island and cover their boring annual Cake Walk fundraiser, he stumbles upon a much more fascinating tale: an entire town pretending to see and interact with a man who does not actually exist. Determined it’s the career-making story he’s been needing for his podcast, Anders returns to the island to begin covert research and spend more time with the enigmatic Piper — but he has no idea out of all the lives he’s about to upend, it’s his that will change the most.