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The Light Between Oceans meets The Snow Child in this novel set in a Scottish village in the weeks after a young boy mysteriously washes up on shore, causing the buried secrets of the insular community to come to light and rekindling an old love story.
It's 1900 and Skerry, a small Scottish fishing village, is destined for an unyielding winter. During a storm, a young boy washes up on the shore. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea at the same age many years before, his body never found.
The village is soon snowed in, and Dorothy agrees to look after the child until they can uncover the mystery of his origins. But over time, the lines between reality and desperate hope start to blur as the boy reminds Dorothy more and more of her own lost child.
The boy's arrival also finally forces Dorothy to face the truth about her brief but passionate love affair with Joseph, the fisherman who found the boy on the shore and who has been the subject of whispers connecting him to the drowning of Dorothy's son years earlier.
As the past rises to meet the present, long-buried secrets are unearthed within this tight-knit community, and the child's arrival becomes a catalyst for something far greater than any of them could imagine.
What are you reading this week? (8/7/2025)
'The Fisherman's Gift' by Julia R. Kelly. Not sure where I heard about it, but I'm such a fan of novels based in the British Isles I thought I'd take a chance on it! This one is set in Scotland.
-Evonne_Benedict
What are you reading this week? (3/12/2025)
I just finished The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry, which I loved! And also, A Map to Paradise by Susan Meissner. I am currently reading The Fisherman's Gift by Julia R. Kelly.
-Deborah_C1
What book or books are you reading this week? (01/16/2025)
I have to look - how can I forget? LOL!! In the past week and a half I read: GOOD BAD MOTHER by Anya Mora A MAP TO PARADISE by Susan Meissner BEACH VIBES by Susan Mallery - not my usual genre, but I enjoyed it - there was some tension and a bit of a mystery Currently reading: THE FISHERMAN'S GIFT...
-Elizabeth
"Kelly plumbs the human desire for connection—and capacity for disappointment—with a gentle, skillful hand. This promises good things to come from Kelly." —Publishers Weekly
"A beautifully written story of loss and love." —Florence Knapp, New York Times bestselling author of The Names
"Hauntingly beautiful and completely absorbing, this tragic tale of grief, love and longing kept me reading well into the night. A stunning debut that will stay with me for a long time to come." —Rosie Walsh, New York Times bestselling author of The Love of My Life
This information about The Fisherman's Gift 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.
Julia Kelly has been longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Prize, the Exeter Novel Prize, PenguinWriteNow, and the Bath Novel Award. In 2021 she won the Blue Pencil First Novel Award. Having grown up in a house without television, Julia read anything she could lay her hands on, and as an English teacher, she has tried to pass on her love of stories to the next generation of readers and writers. Since being confined to a wheelchair, Julia has learned to appreciate even more fully the journeys the written word can take us on. She lives in Herefordshire with her partner and between them, they have raised five wonderful children. The Fisherman's Gift is her debut novel.
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