Summer of the Cicadas is about a West Virginian town where a brood of Magicicadas emerges for the first time in seventeen years. The cicadas damage crops and trees, and swarm locals. Jessica, a former cop whose entire family was killed in a car crash two years earlier, is deputized during the crisis. Throughout the book, Jessica must deal with her feelings for her sister's best friend, Natasha, who is a town council member. After Fish and Wildlife removes the swarm, Jessica must also confront the two-year anniversary of her family's death, Natasha's budding romance with a local editor, as well as a sudden but devastating loss that changes everything.

About the Author
Chelsea Catherine is a PEN Short Story Prize Nominee, a winner of the Raymond Carver Fiction Contest in 2016, a Sterling Watson fellow, and an Ann McKee Grant recipient. Her novella Blindsided won the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize and was published in October of 2018. Her nonfiction recently won the Mary C. Mohr Award through the Southern Indiana Review. A native Vermonter, Catherine lived in Key West for two years where she was secretary of the Key West Writers Guild. She now lives in St. Petersburg, FL.

Reviews

"Chelsea Catherine is a bright, raw, original new voice in American fiction. Her prose is electric. And Summer of Cicadas was a novel I couldn't put down."-Thomas Christopher Greene, author of The Perfect Liar

"Many authors are good at writing about the body. Few authors excel at writing the body of the world, the way it moves through everyone: cicadas owning us, making us restless, flirtatious, fearful even; shadows hiding our shadows; the defeating pines; the teasing sun. Chelsea Catherine creates a natural world as real as her characters. But it's not about her deft ability at description or setting; it's about her deep understanding of how everything moves as one-people, moods, moments, manifestations-and the modern Romance (with a capital R) of it all."-Erica Dawson, author of When Rap Spoke Straight to God

"Catherine wraps a fast-paced, stirring narrative about loss and unrequited love into a story about an unusually aggressive 17-year cicada swarm and the terror it brings to the residents of a West Virginia town."-Publisher's Weekly

"We see the author's ability to understand how everything comes together including terror and love." -Amos Lassen

"Readers who enjoy stories about plucky teens in peril will find Musick's novel well written. And because Clare's viewpoint is so literal, the crimes are more horrific-and the redemption even sweeter." -Shelf Media Group

Awards
Winner of Quill Prose Award 2018 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781597094832
Author Chelsea Catherine
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Red Hen Press
Publisher Red Hen Press