“I don’t believe this,” I say, as I read Kate Story’s second novel, Wrecked Upon This Shore. “What are the odds?” Friends with whom I share the coincidence shake their heads in sympathetic astonishment. The odds are slim, and yet, it’s happened: I’ve been asked to write a review, the first in years, of a novel that explores abuse, lesbian love, and motherhood, infused by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. And I’m writing my first novel, and it’s also a novel exploring abuse, lesbian love, and motherhood, infused with the spirit of The Tempest. I’m shaken, in the way eerie coincidences can make the ground under one’s feet feel unsteady.
