Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2015
368 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Washed ashore after escaping Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins and his companion Natty find themselves stranded on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Their ship, the Nightingale, has been destroyed, and besides one other crew member, they are the only survivors. Before they can even grasp the full scope of their predicament, they realize they are not alone on the beach. When a band of Native Americans approaches the shore in a threatening fury, they brutally kill Jim and Natty's last shipmate, rob their dead crew, and take the two desperate survivors hostage.
Suddenly, Jim and Natty are thrust into an adventure that takes them all across the unruly American South. Starting with a desperate escape from a violent chief who obsessively keeps close on their trail, they join up with a troupe of entertainers who take them to a thriving and dangerous New Orleans, and seek the closest port so they can set sail for home once again.
In magnificent, free-wheeling prose and in a high-flying style, Andrew Motion has spun a fantastic yarn that will win the hearts of adventure lovers everywhere.
"Motion, poet laureate of the U.K. from 1999 to 2009, provides a strong dose of swashbuckling, adventure-driven historical fiction… [A] good, page-turning yarn." - Publishers Weekly
"The New World is a thoughtful story of adventure underlay by guilt and the uncertainties of love." - Booklist
"Thrilling… You don't have to have read Treasure Island or Silver to delight in this engaging tale, but fans of the earlier works will be especially pleased at the return of these two likable young adventurers." - Library Journal
"More of a rough approximation than an imaginative penetration of the period." - Kirkus
"Full of big themes such as courage, greed, loyalty and obsession, The New World is still an adventure story first and foremost. ... An entertaining homage that is deeply felt and sincere." - The Guardian (UK)
"Motion paints an alluring portrait of a land that is in turns bountiful and beautiful, barren and savage." - The Independent (UK)
"Motion's narrative is both more lyrical and more gruesome than Robert Louis Stevenson's." - Mail on Sunday (UK)
"It's written with such gusto and passion that it's impossible not to enjoy it."- Irish Independent
This information about The New World was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrew Motion is a poet, critic, novelist, biographer, and, for many years, a professor and poetry editor. He served as Poet Laureate of the UK for ten years and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is now a professor of creative writing at the University of London and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.
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