Against the Shoals

A taut courtroom thriller, Against the Shoals is T. K. Szepesi's stunning debut novel and establishes her as a fresh, original voice in contemporary fiction.

Nick Connor emerged from a turbulent childhood in the projects to become a high-powered partner at an elite New York law firm. While leading a professionally fulfilling but emotionally sterile life, he meets and is retained by Maddie Monnehan, an alluring, award-winning poet who has confessed to shooting her husband, Senator Andrew Monnehan. As Nick mounts Maddie's defense and fights to unravel the secrets lurking within a seemingly unwinnable case, he is plunged into reliving his own hellish nightmares. He is haunted by his past, consumed by traumatic events that defined and devastated his youth. Nick believes that his redemption now lies in the pursuit of justice. Maddie's high-profile case presents Nick with perplexing dead ends. She is fiercely reluctant to provide information that could help him exonerate her. There is also Maddie's disturbing relationship with the eligible Chris Logan, the Attorney General for the State of New York. And above all, there is the mystery shrouding Maddie's past. In his quest for justice, redemption, and love, Nick remains determined to prove Maddie's innocence. This is a tale of loss, survival, and desire, and how some ghosts refuse to be vanquished. It is a powerful love story, deploying the courtroom drama as a vehicle to explore the terrain of dark secrets and the factors that shape one's character and behavior. This complex emotional ride asks the age-old question: are our actions borne of choice or are they preordained by our past? And ultimately: does love conquer all?

T. K. Szepesi is a mother, wife, art historian, music lover, and compulsive writer. She grew up in Israel, where her Hungarian parents nourished her love of the arts and insisted on a multi-lingual education, hence her passion for language. Since 1968, Szepesi has been living in the United States, where she received a B.A. from the City University of New York and completed the M.A. program at New York University's prestigious Institute of Fine Arts. Since then, Szepesi has gone down various interesting and unusual career paths. She was an intelligence officer in the Israeli army, taught at a London kindergarten, owned a New Jersey tannery, dabbled furiously in interior design, and wound up as a curatorial assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art – and many things in between. However, putting pen to paper has been the one constant in her life: poems, short stories, and half-completed manuscripts. It was only when her young daughter spurred her to focus fully on her writing that this novel became a reality.