Flat Water by Jeremy Broyles Book Spotlight!

On a road trip to Flat Water, the home he fled years before, Monty Marinnis must confront the complex and painful loss that drove him away and now demands his return: family. 

Called back to California for his sister’s wedding, Monty’s journey from the Midwest to the California Coast is also a journey through memory, one complicated by the presence of his adoring, but increasingly frustrated wife Charlotte, from whom Monty has concealed the horrifying details of his family’s fracture and how he remains haunted by what he witnessed as a teenager. 

The Marinnis family lost their eldest son in a shocking attack, while Monty watched, helpless. Since that day, he has been obsessed with finding an answer to a question that has none: Why do bad things happen to some people but not others? Why were they selected to suffer? Monty will be confronted by brutal truths that rise like sharks from the depths. 

Content Warnings

“Jeremy Broyles’s Flat Water is a sensorial and emotionally rich exploration of guilt, shame, the burden of secrets, and the possibility of redemption.”
-Jenny Irish, author of I Am Faithful

"Flat Water is an honest and empathetic depiction of grief. Propelled by the energy of Broyles' wit and sparkling prose, Monty's story, like the waves he used to chase, is equal parts surprising and inevitable, brilliant and heartbreaking."

-Meagan Lucas, author of Songbirds and Stray Dogs

"Jeremy Broyles'  Flat Waterwill rock you in oceanic waves, both literal and emotional. Flat Water gives us a clear-eyed look at what it means to suffer great pain, to navigate the murky waters of self-blame, and, ultimately, to find the possibility of self-forgiveness in grief's wake."

-Ann Cummins, author of Red Ant House and Yellowcake

Jeremy Broyles is an Arizona native, originally from the Cottonwood-Jerome-Sedona high desert. He is a professor with nearly twenty years of experience teaching in higher education, and he currently serves as the creative writing program director at Mesa Community College where he has taught since 2017. His stories have appeared in The MacGuffin, Santa Clara Review, Pigeon Review, Pembroke Magazine, Suburbia Journal, and Reckon Review amongst many others. His novella, What Becomes of Ours, was published in 2014 by ELJ Publications. He is an aging rider of bicycles, a talentless surfer of waves, and a happily mediocre player of guitars.

Visit Jeremy at his website, Twitter, and Instagram.