Thirst for Salt

DEBUT At 37, the unnamed narrator in Lucas’s first novel looks back on a life-changing relationship that began during the summer she was 24 and Jude was 42. She had just graduated from university in Sydney and was on holiday with her mother at Sailor’s Beach, where Jude restored antiques and was rehabbing his rough cabin. She wanted to go to grad school, while he was satisfied with his life in the small coastal town and the rapid intensity of their passion threatened to upend both of their futures. Over the next year, they fought to stay together, pushing back against the ingrained, complicated relationships of their individual past lives and the roadblocks that plague May-December romances, until a set of tragedies sealed their fate. What results is an irresistible postmortem on the courage required of two people tangled in an intense relationship that, like the aerodynamically challenged bumblebee, shouldn’t be able to fly.