An uneven but rich novel of a fisherman’s career.
A California fisherman evolves with the times in Koepf’s debut coming-of-age novel.
Alex Skarsen comes from a family of commercial fishermen in Half Moon Bay, California. His rite of passage comes in 1961, when the 11-year-old boy is allowed to skip school, put on his boots, and join his father and uncle for the opening day of crab season aboard their family boat, the Valkyrie.He’s not only initiated into the hard work of crab fishing but the business side, as well, in which union politics and crew rivalries can make for conflicts: “It’s a God danged free for all, is what it is,” complains Alex’s mother. “The whole season comes down to the first week and God forbid a breakdown. You work on the gear for a month, go fishin’ for cheap and hate your friends.” However, when a man on a rival boat falls overboard, Alex learns just what sort of stand-up guys his father and uncle are. As Alex matures into the fishing lifestyle, times get increasingly hard: The fishing industry is changing, the pickings are thinner, and crews must take increasing risks to make their pay. Along with his family’s crabbing work, Alex finds gigs diving for abalone, salvaging scrap, and fishing for salmon in the wild waters of Alaska. He encounters a wide range of characters who make their living on or near the sea, each with his or her own story—and not all stories are to be trusted.
The novel covers Alex’s three-decade career on the water and ends with some of his closest scrapes during his stretch in Harbor Patrol. Wherever he finds himself, though, the fish are never far from his mind; as he tells an old friend late in the novel, “Every time I dream, it’s a fishing dream.” Overall, Koepf’s prose reveals an eye for sharp detail, honed over his own decades on the waves: “The sky and clouds were displayed on the watery surface as blue and gray marbled mirror images. There was not a breath of wind all day, nor had there been for the two previous days.” The novel has a choppy, episodic structure for the most part, particularly in the second half, in which the coming-of-age story that revolves around Alex and his family’s boat is supplanted by odd jobs and solo adventures. Like a boat on the sea, though, Koepf doesn’t always have the wind at his back; some segments of the novel drift with little momentum, while others move along briskly and with purpose. Even so, the book is never tedious, due to its finely drawn characters, and readers will have the sense that they’re looking in on a way of life that’s mostly vanished over the last half century. In the tradition of exaggerated fishing stories, there are a few elements that strain believability to amp up the drama or humor. For the most part, though, the author provides a stirring, melancholic, and naturalistic portrait of a life on boats.
An uneven but rich novel of a fisherman’s career.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 369
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters.
When star hockey player Alec Barczewski’s estranged childhood friend, Dani Collins, moves to town, they end up in a mutually beneficial fake-dating relationship that reignites old feelings.
Following her parents’ divorce, Dani and her mom move in with Dani’s hockey legend grandfather in Southview, Minnesota, where she spent a month every summer as a child and where her friendship with Alec grew. Between visits, the two were pen pals, but they eventually fell out of touch. Despite some tensions over their loss of friendship, the high school seniors reconnect. Desperate to get off Harvard’s waitlist, Dani needs another extracurricular activity, while Alec—whose reputation took a hit when a photo of him holding a bong appeared on social media—is eager to improve his tarnished image for NHL scouts. The pair strike a deal: They’ll fake date, making Alec look like a stable guy whose academically gifted girlfriend is related to hockey royalty, and in exchange, he’ll get Dani a team manager position that will catch the eye of Harvard’s admissions officers. Eventually, complicated feelings about their past, stressful family relationships, and their brewing romance boil over. Romance fans will love the deliciously tension-filled scenes between Alec and Dani, who are believable friends with heavy demands weighing on them. They feel like real teenagers, and readers will enjoy rooting for them as the well-paced story unfolds. Main characters present white.
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781665921268
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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