Creating a dreamlike Victorian atmosphere  "The Glass Ocean," by
Lori Baker.  In this magical, mesmerizing and disturbingly
mysterious first novel by short-story writer Lori Baker, who’s
taught at Brown and Wheaton, 18-year-old Carlotta Dell’oro,
6-feet-2 and flame-haired, recounts the strange tale of her
parents’ courtship and life in Victorian England.  On a sea
journey to find rare specimens, Felix Girard, takes his daughter
Clotilde and Leopoldo Dell’oro, who’ll draw the creatures that
they discover. Felix rows off and vanishes. Leopoldo, a
straight-laced, uptight, timid soul weds the beautifully blonde,
glacial and remote Clotilde and moves to grim wintry Whitby by
the North Sea to discover glass-making, eventually creating
glass masterpieces for a glass ocean for a museum.  The
relationship between them is tenuous at best, totally at odds at
worst as the local glassmaker, Thomas Argument, begins bringing
gifts to Clotilde who wants to escape, head out to sea and find
her father.  Leopoldo’s obsessed wit