Sweet Salt Air
For the better part of two decades Elise has been living a quiet domestic life, taking care of her husband and daughters. She can’t remember the last time she was responsible for anything more than organizing a dinner party.
Days pass by in a daze for her until she gets a call from the hospital. With her husband involved in a car accident, Elise must step up and go to a conference in Portugal in his stead.
After years of suppressing her true character, Elise attends the conference and is a surprise hit. While there, she meets Sabine, a young PhD student to whom she’s immediately drawn. After the conference, Sabine asks Elise to join her on a weekend trip to Porto. For the first time in a long time Elise makes an impulsive decision… and accepts.
Why did she do that? What was she thinking? And how is Sabine going to react if she ever finds out the truth?
Tags: romance | LGBTQ | novel
Chapter 1
With the clip in her mouth, Elise Van der Wiele wound her hair around itself, then pinned it in a messy bun on the top of her head. Delicate, freshly colored strands tumbled to either side of her face. After yanking them back with a firm grip, she pinned them down. She gave herself a final glance in the mirror before picking up her red leather bag from the neighboring chair.
Sweet Salt Air, the first book of author Emma Stanley, is the perfect read for fans of Emily Danforth.
Sabine’s brown eyes darted shamelessly over Elise’s face, trying to read it. When no clear emotion was recognized, she backed up half a step and tucked a strand of curly black hair behind her ear. The unease hung in the air between them, an invisible waltz as both tried to get a grasp of the other.
I think the story is about who you are when no one’s watching. The freedom you have to be yourself when you’re alone in a foreign place – the good and the bad that comes with it – and what you can learn about yourself by reflecting your life in another person’s experiences. Emma Stanley
From my readers
About writing Sweet Salt Air
The story came to me while I was in Portugal. I think it was the architecture. The mixture of old and new buildings, crumbling and completely renovated, busy and empty at the same time hit me hard. I love traveling and seeing new places, but I’ve never had that feeling before or since.
I wrote the outline in Guimaraes, at the same place Elise and Sabine have their first dinner together. It was like a trance. I still have a picture of half of my sunburned face from sitting in the same spot for 3 hours to write.
Elise I understood from the first moment and she changed very little since my first draft. Sabine on the other hand took another year to comprehend. I still don’t think I fully do, but I’ve made peace with that. I love them both dearly and I speak of them as if we were old friends.
I hope you’ll end up loving them as much as I did.
Emma Stanley
Future releases
Currently (slowly) working on a third book.
While I’m not going to go into plot details, I will say that it will be an exploration of people’s relationship with time, generational and national trauma. A gothic story set in Eastern Europe.
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With her husband involved in a car accident, Elise must step up and go to a conference in Portugal in his stead.
After years of suppressing her true character, Elise attends the conference and is a surprise hit. While there, she meets Sabine, a young PhD student to whom she’s immediately drawn. After the conference, Sabine asks Elise to join her on a weekend trip to Porto. For the first time in a long time Elise makes an impulsive decision… and accepts.
