Book Review: The Fisherman’s Gift by Julia Kelly

The sea stole him from her. Could it bring him back?

Winter, 1900. A little boy washes up on the beach of a small fishing village in Scotland, barely alive. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea many years before.

When the village is snowed in, Dorothy agrees to look after the child until he can be returned home. But, as the past rises to meet the present, long-buried secrets in this tight-knit community start to come to light. And Dorothy finds herself thrown together again with the reclusive fisherman Joseph, after years of keeping their distance.

Debut novel based in the United Kingdom

Publisher UK: Vintage, Harvill Secker

Publisher US:  Simon & Schuster 

Publishing Date UK:  6 March 2025

Publishing Date US:  March 18 2025

The Stolen Child by WB Yeats

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles 
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Julia Kelly interweaves aspects of Yeats poem heartbreakingly beautifully to describe Dorothy’s son Moses drowning in the sea. This disturbing loss sends Dorothy into trauma she cannot heal from. Especially, years later when a small boy washes up onshore bearing a strong resemblance to her son. 

Written in a dual era storyline, The Fisherman’s Gift  tells the backstory of the hardships Dorothy experiences with her female neighbors in this remote Scottish fishing village. 

I found The Fisherman’s Gift deeply moving and I couldn’t put it down. My heart broke for Dorothy but I could appreciate her steadfastness she had for the people in her life.