Topaz Chronicles: Close Encounters in the Pacific Ocean by Linda Collison

Bob and Linda buy an old 36-foot sailboat and bring to life a dream that lasts 20 years. This sailing memoir recounts and reflects upon the couple's deep-water relationships—with a boat, with the ocean, with sailors, and with each other. Collison's sea-based novels include Star-Crossed, Surgeon's Mate, Rhode Island Rendezvous, and Water Ghosts. A retired registered nurse, Linda sailed with Bob as voyage crew aboard HM Bark Endeavour, the Australian made replica of Captain James Cook's three-masted ship, on its three-week crossing from Vancouver to Hawaii in 1999. The experience inspired her first historical novel Star-Crossed (Knopf 2006), a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age—2007.