{"id":5,"date":"2021-11-11T18:14:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T23:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gerribrightwell.com\/?page_id=5"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:50:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:50:03","slug":"mesmerize","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gerribrightwell.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Front Page"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Turnback Ridge<\/i><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In a near\u2013future Alaska in which both global warming and immigration policy are wreaking havoc on lives and land, Nash Preston is trying to hold his family together. As the Alaska summer heats up, he ignores his expired visa\u2014and now Immigration bounty hunters are after him as he flees for the border with his sons. Their fraught journey intensifies when his youngest, Robbie, picks up a mysterious fossil that makes him sick. When his boys are snatched and taken to a sinister detention facility, he must find a way to save them.<\/p>\n

\u201cReaders will be drawn deep into this searing tale of a father\u2019s desperate flight through a dystopian Far North filled with menace and contagion. A hard and gleaming gem of a novel.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2014SCOTT GRAHAM, National Outdoor Book Award\u2013winning author of Canyonlands Carnage\n\n\u201cThis heartfelt tale of fatherhood will resonate with many.\u201d\n\n\u2014PUBLISHERS WEEKLY\n\nORDER<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n

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Before Fleur\u2019s desperate phone call, Sandra was all set to move south to escape her family, her ex-boyfriend and the wet Seattle weather. But now Fleur has broken her arm and needs a ride home immediately–no questions asked.<\/p>\nTricked into agreeing, Sandra reluctantly sets out on the trip. Fleur is sullen and withdrawn, not like her breezy old self at all. Perhaps the answer to her odd behavior will come from her family in Fairbanks. But from Fleur\u2019s sly brother Ryan, to her watchful sister Miriam, the Cold Country seems to have bred a family of misfits, full of guilt and guilty secrets just waiting to be revealed.\n\nAs the Fairbanks winter closes in around them all, Sandra discovers that her journey has only just begun.\n\nORDER ON AMAZON<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n

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London, 1893. Elderly Mrs. Bentley is on her deathbed, and her son Robert has returned from France. But in the Bentleys\u2019 well-appointed home, everyone has their secrets, including Robert\u2019s beautiful and elusive wife, the orphan maid she hires from the country, and the mysterious young woman who arrives, claiming to be the bride of Robert\u2019s drowned brother.<\/p>\nRobert is quickly developing a reputation in anthropometry, the nascent science of identifying criminals by body measurements. Yet soon he is caught up in the deceptions swirling around him, for no one under his roof is quite what they seem. When an intruder enters the house and ransacks the study, a chain of events is set in motion that threatens \u00a0their very survival.\n\nORDER ON AMAZON<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n

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A fast-paced, darkly funny crime novel set in Interior Alaska that follows down-on-his-luck cabbie, Mike Fisher, as he searches for his daughter.<\/p>\nHer step-father has been shot in her bathroom, and Fisher thinks she killed him and fled. In a panic he tries to hide the body, but that\u2019s not easy when it\u2019s fifty-below outside.\n\nThings get dangerously complicated when it turns out that step-dad was part of a local militia, and that now they\u2019re on Fisher\u2019s tail.\n\n\nDead of Winter<\/i> evokes the harshness of winter in the \u00ad\u00ad\u00adsub\u2011arctic and the intrigue fostered in a bored, trapped and socially circumscribed small-town community.\n\n \n\nORDER ON AMAZON<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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About the Author<\/h2>\n

Gerri Brightwell is a British writer who lives in Alaska with her husband, fantasy writer Ian C. Esslemont, and their sons. Her latest novel, Turnback Ridge<\/i>, was published by Torrey House Press in 2022. She is the author of the novels Dead of Winter<\/i> (Salt, 2016), The Dark Lantern<\/i> (Crown, 2008), and Cold Country <\/i>(Duckworth, 2003). Her short work has appeared in many venues including Best Small Fictions 2023<\/i>,\u00a0The Best American Mystery Stories 2017<\/i>, Alaska Quarterly Review<\/i>, Southwest Review<\/i>, Copper Nickel<\/i>, Redivider<\/i>, and BBC Radio 4\u2019s Opening Lines<\/i>. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.<\/p>\n\"\"\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Blog<\/h2>\n

Thoughts about writing and the writing life, and latest news.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCandyass: finalist for The Big Moose Prize\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

My unpublished novel, Candyass, has been announced by Black Lawrence Press as one of their finalists for their annual novel contest, The Big Moose Prize 2026.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead more\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Story Ends There\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

It’s not that I don’t like sequels–some of them are wonderful, in films and in books. But let’s face it, you have to disturb your characters from wherever you left[…]<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead more\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe wonders of slime mould\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

My short story “Flight” has just come out in Moss Magazine vol. 8. This wasn’t an easy story to find a home for. It’s set in Canada, not the US,[…]<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead more\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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