Mary Ann Taylor-Hall – författare

"Soon or a little too lateeverything you never knewyou always wanted turns uphereat The Breakers" -- from the book

In her new novel At The Breakers, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, author of the widely praised and beloved Come and Go, Molly Snow, presents Jo Sinclair, a longtime single mother of four children. Fleeing an abusive relationship after a shocking attack, Jo finds herself in Sea Cove, New Jersey, in front of The Breakers, a salty old hotel in the process of renovation. Impulsively, she negotiates a job painting the guest rooms and settles in with her youngest child, thirteen-year-old Nick. As each room is transformed under brush and roller, Jo finds a way to renovate herself, reclaiming a promising life derailed by pregnancy and a forced marriage at age fourteen.

Jo''s new life at the hotel features a memorable mix of locals and guests, among them Iris Zephyr, the hotel''s ninety-two-year-old permanent boarder; Charlie, a noble mixed-breed dog; Marco, owner of a nearby gas station/liquor store, who may become Jo''s next mistake; and enigmatic Wendy, her streetwise eighteen-year-old daughter, who signs on as housekeeper. Irrepressible Victor Mangold, Jo''s former professor and a well-known poet some twenty years her senior, invites himself to Thanksgiving dinner and into her life, his passion awakening Jo''s yearning for art and love.

At The Breakers is a deeply felt and beautifully written novel about forgiveness and reconciliation. In Jo''s words, she is "trying to find the right way to live" as a long-suffering woman who is put through the fire and emerges with a chance at a full, rich life for herself and her children, if only she has the faith to take it.

The first comprehensive poetry collection by award-winning Kentucky writer and poet Mary Ann Taylor-HallSelected and arranged by the author, the poems in Out of Nowhere unfold as a luminous narrative of the poet’s life, moving through seasons of experience—from the first stirrings of childhood consciousness to present-day meditations on loss and grief—with candor, clarity, and startling tenderness. She opens to the reader the intimate landscape of her life in rural Kentucky, which she connects directly to the immensities and astonishing mysteries of the universe that come smashing through even our most ordinary days.Published in 2017 by Old Cove Press