Chilly Winds

"Mix yourself a gin and tonic, settle into your beach chair, and transport yourself to Virginia's Eastern Shore via Chilly Winds, a novel by Brooks Birdwell Yeager. Taz Blackwell is a kind-of-retired negotiator of environmental treaties for the State Department who keeps getting called back into harness and sent overseas to gather intel on nefarious doings involving the Russians and rare earth minerals. Meanwhile, back home on Chincoteague, he stumbles into domestic intrigue and a nasty mining company. Throughout, his romantic life is, well, complicated. Yeager is a deft and entertaining narrator. He knows the corridors of power in DC, he knows his birds and the shore's bars and restaurants, and he obviously knows more than a little about how international environmental affairs are conducted. And he's a dandy writer. Chilly Winds is way more than a beach book, but like all good beach books, it's awfully hard to put down."

-Tom Kenworthy, advocate for public lands conservation and former newspaper reporter 

"Yeager has produced something remarkable, a tale that is both charmingly picaresque and utterly grounded that captures the high-stakes dynamics of international Arctic politics as well as the local color of life in a small coastal town."

-David Balton, former US ambassador for Oceans and Fisheries

"In this highly engaging first novel, Yeager draws on his vast international and local environmental experience to weave a tale of international intrigue with a surprising finale on Virginia's Eastern Shore."

-William Eichbaum, former senior environmental official in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, and the

US Department of Interior 

"Yeager's narrative captures the familiar yet alluring machinations of international diplomacy and the unexpected intrigues of a rural, coastal idyll."

-Helen Lewis, Chincoteague Island "come here"

"Heart-pounding international intrigue and gritty rural town life dripping with real-life detail that will keep you reading until the very last page."

-Russell Heath, author of award-winning Rinn's Crossing