BLUE SUMMER

Award-winning novelist Jim Nichols explores fate, abuse, and delayed justice as they play out on an emotional and gritty landscape in his new coming-of-age novel.

BLUE SUMMER brings us forty-year-old musician Cal Shaw, a man who has seen better days. He now lives in a trailer park in Florida while coming to terms with addiction. He also contemplates his idyllic 1960s Maine childhood, which was shattered by two blows: the death of his father and arrival of a violent stepfather. As jazz and girls became his youthful escape, young Shaw's search for love and forgiveness was torn apart by loss and domestic abuse. BLUE SUMMER is the story of the justice he eventually delivers, and underpinning it all is a beautiful melody he calls ‘Blue Summer.'

Nichols draws inspiration from his experiences growing up in Maine. He worked a variety of jobs including bartender, pilot, taxi driver, orange picker, travel agent, and dispatcher for an air taxi service. His writing has appeared in numerous regional and national magazines including Esquire, Narrative, and Night Train. He has written two previous novels, Hull Creek and Closer All the Time, winner of the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Best Fiction. He lives in Warren, Maine.