A modern comic adult fairy tale with an ensemble cast of Cinderellas. Instead of a kingdom by the sea, our story takes place in and around a residential hotel by the sea. The architecturally eclectic Briers Hotel is situated on Leech Beach, a not particularly inviting beach, being often fog-bound and always scruffy. But it's the perfect setting for our Cinderellas, male and female, who put up with the scruffiness of life while striving to make it through their various personal seaside fogs. Theater; art; antiques; old movies; sex; more sex; death; fast and slow cars, chicken shit and cow poop; military bearing and erotic emissions-not to mention the wicked witch, the sea serpent by the seashore, the village ogre, the village idiot, and several Prince Charmings-all figure into this merry tale with a multitude of happy endings.

ADVANCE PRAISE

"Steven Paul Leiva has written an engaging, thoughtful, and kind book. In this era of unlikeable characters and the idea that a "good" book is one in which horrible things happen to horrible people, Leiva has turned that entirely on its head. Even when people act badly, he has told their story with sympathy and grace, with complete kindness for even the most outwardly difficult characters. By the Sea is long, but it's not fat. It's all muscle. And what a satisfying book it is! Leiva has built his small world perfectly, and each character is so complete and well thought out that what at first seems disparate pieces fit together perfectly by the end. It's a hat trick in perfect proportions!"-Jo Graham, author of Black Ships, Hand of Isis, and Stealing Fire.