So,

gentle reader, open up this book, pick out a tale at random, doesn’t matter

which, and put your feet up on the old swaybacked sofa in this ancient

tumbledown rose cottage at the end of the sandy lane. Listen. Outside the

window, a summer nor'easter is brewing. The wind finds a shrill banshee

voice. It rattles the shingles and mists hard, chill raindrops off the grey

slop dancing out in the harbor…Listen. Thomas Woodbriar’s calm baritone

introduces you to his world, this tiny crescent of sanddune and beach plum

and cobblestone, such a sweetly mad tempest in a cracked, old teapot, this

Naugahide that he knows so intimately… (From the introduction by Phil

Laughing Crow Austin)