FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Page & Palette, 32 S. Section St. in Fairhope, will host novelist Mary Alice Monroe, on Oct. 8, from 6-8 p.m., for a talk and signing of her book, “Last Light over Carolina.”

Set in the sultry South Carolina lowcountry, Monroe details the proud traditions and earthy resilience of the people who live there in this new work.

Publishers Weekly embraced her last book “Time Is a River,” writing, “The author’s love for her characters is palpable throughout.”

Now she returns with “Last Light over Carolina,” the deeply moving story of another strong woman, Carolina Morrison, struggling to prove that love is a light that never dies.

Every woman in the lowcountry knows the unspoken fear that clutches the heart every time her man sets out to sea. Now, that fear has become a terrible reality for Carolina Morrison. Her husband, shrimp boat captain Bud Morrison, the only man she’s ever loved, is lost and alone somewhere in the vast Atlantic fishing grounds, with a storm gathering and last light falling.

As the action unfolds on this one terrifying, illuminating day, the Morrisons look back across 30 years of love and loss, joy and sorrow.

Carolina walked away from a well-to-do upbringing to marry Capt. Bud Morrison. She embraced his extraordinary lifestyle by the sea and the customs of a historic shrimping village.

Yet lately, hard times and the loneliness of long separations have driven them apart — and driven her to make a mistake that threatens to shatter their once unbreakable bond forever.

When Bud is overdue at the docks, the close-knit community rallies together to search for one of its own. But Carolina knows that it is their love that must somehow call him home, across miles of rough water and unspeakable memories.

And she swears that if she is given one more chance — for love and for forgiveness — nothing will ever take her from this man’s side again.

“In Last Light over Carolina,” Monroe once again explores a vanishing feature of the Southern coastline, the mysterious yet time-honored shrimping culture, in a convincing and compelling tale of an enduring marriage.

Monroe is a New York Times best-selling author who is fluent in Japanese and co-authored an English survival guide after a stay in Japan.

Her fiction works gained much critical and commercial success (“Time is a River,” “The Beach House,” “Skyward,” “Swimming Lessons” and “Sweetgrass.”

She lives in Isles of Palms, S.C. with her husband.

The author will exclusively sign all books purchased from Page & Palette.

For more information, call (251) 928-5295, or visit www.pageandpalette.com.