The Austens-Todd, Holly and their two sons-arrive in Rio de Janeiro for a planned stay of two years. Holly is a frustrated visual artist, Todd an environmentalist who wants to push mining conglomerates out of the Amazon.As Todd disappears on his quest, Holly begins a reconnaissance mission of her own. In a city of lush tropical excess, she hopes to reclaim not only her art, but her sense of self, feeling battered by the demands of marriage and motherhood.Both are driven by very modern obsessions and a timeless passion for risk. While Todd pursues a vanished people through the Amazon, Holly abandons herself to emotional impulse, plunging into an affair and testing the dark limits of her imagination.As the Austens' marriage disintegrates, Holly and Todd enter a downward spiral of temptation and peril. In Brazil, a place they don't understand, they are surrounded by friends they only think they know, and the treacherous physical and emotional terrain threatens to swallow them and their children whole.Drink the Sky asks hard questions about the nature of our responsibilities to those we love and to ourselves, about the schism between private and public values, and the sometimes dire personal cost of attaining our ideals. Lesley Krueger is an award-winning novelist. Her latest novel is Far Creek Road, published by ECW Press in 2023. Lesley's previous novel, Time Squared, was published in 2021. She has written four other novels, two short story collections, a travel memoir and a children's book. All are available as e-books, most on Draft2Digital.Lesley writes a free Substack newsletter, Alive to the World, in which she reviews books, writes about researching her novels and tells stories from her adventures. You can subscribe for free at lesleykrueger.substack.com
