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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 4, 2019)
THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2019 // 19 BOOKMONGER Port Townsend author focuses on smell in coming-of-age novel BRING IN THIS COUPON FOR 10% OFF sea, and how to read books. Once a month they go down to a sheltered cove on the island and fi nd supplies – left by a mermaid, her father tells her. As Emmeline grows older, she begins to ask more questions, which leads to a confrontation with her father that propels her into the world at large, without him at her side. She is taken in by Henry and Colette, a kind couple who operates a mom-and- pop summer resort. They send her to school, where she doesn’t fi t in well with most of the kids. There is one boy, however, who is also a misfi t, and he and Emmeline become close. But Fisher comes from a dysfunctional family with an abusive dad, and when he can take no more, Fisher fi nally runs away. At the same time, Emmeline is trying to fi gure out her own background, and why her dad absconded with her to the island all those years ago. Expires 7/11/19 Erica Bauermeister, the best-selling Port Townsend This Week’s Book author whose novel, “The “The Scent Keeper” By School of Essential Ingre- Erica Bauermeister dients,” led to a popular sequel, “The Lost Art of St. Martin’s Press – 320 pp Mixing,” has moved beyond — $26.99 what had proven to be a winning combination of food and friendship to strike fragrance. Her father has a machine out in a different direction. Her new book, “The – a small, sleek, silver box Scent Keeper,” is a com- – that he unwraps only once ing-of-age novel that begins a season. When he acti- on a remote island vates it, it captures inhabited by only the current scent of two people. And yet, the place on a small as the title suggests, square of paper Bauermeister still that rolls out of the places a premium machine like an old on the power of our Polaroid photo. And senses. In this book, that, too, is rolled Bauermeister up and sealed into she focuses on the sense of smell. one of the vials and Emmeline has grown up tucked away in its own on a remote, forested island drawer. in a cold, saltwater sea. Her Life on the island father brought her to this involves plenty of subsis- uninhabited island as an tence work – foraging for infant. They live in a cabin food, chopping wood – but lined with drawers – each it is also a place to learn and holds a small vial contain- grow. Emmeline’s father ing a rolled up slip of paper teaches her how to read the that is imbued with a unique signs of the forest and the YO U R E N T I R E O R D E R ! FLOWER | CONCENTRATES | EDIBLES | CBD PREROLLS | ACCESSORIES | TOPICALS MEDICAL R E C R E AT I O N A L hi Casual Cannabis • 193 Marine Dr., Astoria, OR 97103 • 503.325.4078 • www.hiAstoria.com Eventually she, too, leaves the safe nest that Henry and Colette have tried to create for her, to seek more answers in The City. “The Scent Keeper” is an ambitious mash-up of fable, teen identity quest and family strife, lavishly provisioned with Bauer- meister’s descriptions of accompanying fragrances that “mingled and danced and whispered. Their scents slipped into yours…” And, Emmeline discov- ers, the scents can invoke memory and manipulate behavior. From beginning to end, some nagging questions arise in “The Scent Keeper.” Underneath the olfactory enchantments, there are some harder truths. The Bookmonger is Bar- bara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly col- umn focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Pacifi c Northwest. Con- tact her at bkmonger@ nwlink.com Author Erica Bauermeister’s coming-of-age novel “The Scent Keeper.”