ST. JOHNSBURY, Vermont – Voyage, an imprint of Brigantine Media, announces the forthcoming release of Nathaniel Purple by F.D. Reeve. Nathaniel Purple (ISBN: 978-0-9826644-5-2, Trade Paper, 128 pages, $13.95) will be available from Brigantine Media, Amazon.com, and through Baker & Taylor January 1, 2012.

A feud, a fire, an affair. Cows in the pasture, men at the lunch counter, violets in an old cream bottle. This is Vermont life—passionate, pastoral, pungent—in F.D. Reeve’s stunning new novella, Nathaniel Purple.

The story is more than the sum of its parts. It is author F.D. Reeve’s love poem to the state of Vermont, which forms a rich, vivid canvas for his intimate portrayal of village life.

But human nature is a bit out of joint. Years of living on the “bony” land has led the village people to jealousies and forbidden couplings.

Reeve draws us into his world through the sharp eyes of Nathaniel Purple, who, as the town’s librarian, is the link to the world of books and rational thinking. He is also an everyman, a native Vermonter, able to embrace the town’s practical justice. And he has a few secrets of his own.

Nathaniel Purple celebrates the strength and timelessness of the natural world above the daily struggle and quotidian quarrels of everyday existence. People live out their destinies while the seasons turn.

F.D. Reeve first visited Vermont when John Atherton and Norman Rockwell were painting. Forty years ago, he bought his first house in Vermont, and now lives in an old farmhouse in Wilmington, Vermont. His writing has earned an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Golden Rose from the New England Poetry Club, and a D. Lit from New England College.

Nathaniel Purple, his thirty-first book, will be available nationwide January 1, 2012. For more information please visit www.brigantinemedia.com.