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Library | Audience | Home Location | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Central | Adult | Large print | Large print book | ZENTN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Looscan | Adult | Large print | Large print book | ZENTN | Searching... Unknown |
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Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Zentner's second novel (after Touch) is brutal and beautiful. Heroine Cordelia Kings is a member of the legendary lobster-fishing Kings family, which has been plying their trade for 300 years on Loosewood Island, Maine. Her family line began with painter and fisherman Brumfitt Kings, who believed his wife was a gift from the sea. Gifts come with a price, and there is a legend that the Kings suffer from a curse; the curse appears to be real when Cordelia's brother, Scotty, dies (he was expected to be heir to the family lobster company, but, as it turns out, wasn't the waterman Cordelia is). As times change, so do threats. Lobstermen from nearby James Harbor moved into the Loosewood fishing territory some time ago; now they're also running drugs. But Loosewood's small population (including Cordelia's two younger sisters and her tyrannical father) can't wait around for the authorities to react; they take care of things themselves, igniting a spark that starts the book's escalating conflict. Zentner gets the reader to root for Cordelia very early on. His fusion of myth and mission, fury and beauty, as well as the palpable sense of place in this unique corner of the world add up to a memorable tale. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
The talented author of the mystical Touch (2011) returns with a much more commercial novel about fishing wars on the fictional Loosewood Island. The Kings family has been fishing lobster for 300 years and is descended from a famous painter who, family legend has it, was married to a mermaid. Now, however, their waters are being invaded by the rough men who work at an overfished neighboring harbor and who dabble in delivering boatloads of meth. Cordelia, the eldest of the three daughters, loves the work and is the obvious heir to her aging father's business, but her favored place has come at the expense of sibling rivalry. She's in love with her married sternman and is determined to preserve her way of life, even if it means confronting the men who are cutting her family's traps. Zentner spends a good deal of time setting up the family mythology and echoing Shakespeare's King Lear, but when the fishing wars heat up, so does the plot. With its strong female lead and its evocative setting, this could well be Zentner's breakout book.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2014 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Steeped in the lore of the sea with a nod to the grand scope of Shakespeare's King Lear, Zentner's satisfying family saga (following Touch) explores the Kings family's mythical past and the unsettling truth of their future. The family has been like royalty on Loosewood Island since Brumfitt Kings, whose paintings and journals reveal the family history, arrived from Ireland 300 years ago. Woody Kings, the aging patriarch, assumed his son Scotty would be the rightful heir, but tragedy forces Woody to put his oldest daughter Cordelia at the helm of the Queen Jane. All but invisible to her father, Cordelia has worked on her father's boat since she was a young girl and has grown into a courageous, independent woman in a world dominated by men. The one true daughter, she steps up to confront drug runners and ruthless poachers threatening the Kings's age-old territory. Unsure of her place in a family circle shared by two sisters, Rena and Carly, Cordelia puts aside sibling rivalry and her own promising love interest to fight for her family's legacy. VERDICT Award--winning Zentner's literary tour de force takes hold of the reader's imagination and doesn't let go. Extraordinary story-telling not to be missed.-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
