{"first_publish_date": "1983", "description": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "***Pearce's simply sketched characters and neatly tucked plots can often take on a Hardyesque solidity from her empathic reach into period mores and her sparse, evocative landscapes: in this tale, set in a 19th-century Cornish fishing village, there's a warming May/December marriage, passion nobly sublimated to wider loyalties, and a splendidly sacrificial demise.***\r\n\r\nMaggie Care, 19, dusty and bareheaded, walks down over the moor track to the village of Polsinney, finding a bit of work with sharp-tongued widow Rachel Tallack, whose main source of income is from the sea. Rachel's son Brice is skipper of a fishing boat, still owned, to Rachel's disgust, by her brother-in-law - crippled, dying, bad-tempered Gus Tallack.\r\n\r\nMaggie is a good worker, quiet, though willing to tell little, of a father, brother, and fiance drowned at sea. And her secret soon becomes obvious: Maggie is pregnant - so, despite Brice's growing love for her, she's forced to leave the Tallack home.\r\n\r\nBut, Maggie's rescuer will be the other Tallack man: 52-year-old 'Uncle Gus,' who's been deeply depressed, accepting the death sentence of his \"wasting disease,\" glooming over his lost life as skipper and owner of a sail loft. Pleased to have the pleasure of removing a legacy from Rachel, Gus offers marriage; Maggie accepts - and, as baby Jim is born, the marriage opens up vistas for both. Still, through the years, the long-smoldering love of Brice and Maggie will flare into words - if never deeds. And, before the bittersweet close, there will be tumultuous sea action: wildly tilting decks slithering with nets full of silver fish; a wreck and survival ordeal; and a roaring, pounding finale - as a doomed man brings in a boat through heaving seas, sharp rocks, and shelving sands.\r\n\r\n***Again, Pearce displays her ability to absorb researched arcana into the story's tempo and ambience without a whiff of library dust; her seascapes are flecked with fresh, salty recognition's. A soothing domestic sampler, framed by fisherman-life excitement.***"}, "title": "Polsinney Harbour", "covers": [9323771], "subject_places": ["South England", "Mew Head", "Mindren", "Tardrew", "Polsinney", "Porthgaren"], "lc_classifications": ["PR6066.E165 P6 1983"], "subject_people": ["God."], "key": "/works/OL3466287W", "authors": [{"type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}, "author": {"key": "/authors/OL577723A"}}], "subject_times": ["1869"], "subjects": ["Christian", "Beliefs", "Life", "Mary Emily Pearce", "Adult", "Fiction", "Literature", "Pentecostal", "Family", "Families", "Fastidious", "Dairymaid", "Farmland", "Farms", "Farming", "Harbor", "Treacherous", "Coastline", "Coastal", "Waters", "Seaside", "Fishing", "Villages", "Gossiping", "Neighbours  Spyglass", "Fisher-folk", "Fish-cellars", "Fish-merchants", "Fishmongers", "Fishermen", "Fleet", "Crew", "Fish-quay", "Lobster-boats", "English literature"], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "dewey_number": ["823/.914"], "latest_revision": 7, "revision": 7, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2009-12-10T03:39:23.788918"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2024-04-17T04:26:12.353000"}}