This book is a bit strange, with mixed feelings from me. While the author wanted to honor four missing men, revealing family secrets didn't seem fitting. The book provided too much or too little information at times, with some irrelevant details about people such as Linda Eastman McCartney's father.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. This review is my voluntary and unbiased opinion.

The author is a journalist who recounts the horrific story of the Wind Blown commercial fishing vessel which was lost at sea after departing from Montauk Harbor on March 22, 1984. She became interested in 2016 when she started working for the East Hampton Star and would spend many weekends with her husband in the East End of New York.
Captain Michael Stedman headed out with David Connick his mate and their relatively young inexperienced crew during the height of the commercial tilefishing season. The two were an unlikely pair being from white collar families and choosing the uncertainty of fishing as a career. The book is structured in chapters dedicated to specific topics or people. I honestly just found the nonlinear timeline to be confusing although there are many memorable photos. She clearly spent time and energy researching the story and the people to ensure the integrity of the tragic event. It just wasn't a great read for me.

Narrative nonfiction at its finest. I'm not sure what made me choose this one.....I loathe ocean accident/lost boat stories. I'm glad that I read it though. Very well researched and the back stories of each of the doomed men and their loved ones were so well crafted. I could feel the care that Fairbanks took in researching and interviewing all of the people left behind and how this tragedy affected them all.

Reminded me of The Perfect Storm. I enjoyed learning about the characters' backstories and how they all ended up on the same boat and had the same fate.

Very sad.. I struggled to get through the book not based on the authors writing but the heaviness of the content. I am still processing.

I finished reading The Lost Boys of Montauk several weeks ago and cannot stop thinking about it. The storyline is haunting. The author does an excellent job of describing the impact of the tragedy on the families and the community as a whole. The East End is always a magical place for tourists but this book successfully captures the day to day lives of the locals. Highly recommend!

It is no wonder this is a best seller. I loved this book the 4 men aboard a ship who never return and the repercussions it has on those left living.

A very well-written story! An absolute page-turner and a must-read!

In March of 1984, a rogue storm resulted in the loss of the Wind Blown and her four man crew. An experienced captain, his trusted first mate, and two young crewmen lost their lives to the freezing waters off Montauk, New York. The captain was skilled, but the seaworthiness of his vessel was questionable, and the town mourned the life that had been lost...it still carries the scars of losing fishermen at sea.

Fairbanks delivers the story of these men and their families, including their lives leading up to their fateful journey and the lives of those who loved them following their disappearance. There is a lot of great historical information and family history present in the pages, along with a very atmospheric description of the fishing life and the dangers that these men faced every day as they rode out to find their catch.

While the story is very obviously heavily researched and Fairbanks has to be given credit for the amount of background that she managed to obtain on these men's families as well as their chosen profession, the final product was unfortunately a bit lackluster for me.

There is a lot of information present, but not all of it is necessarily pertinent. There is a LOT of back history on prior generations and wandering anecdotes that sometimes paint extraneous characters in more detail than some of the four lost men. The story isn't told in any particular organizational style, as it moves from time to time, place to place, and character to character, without a lot of cohesive sense. This led to a bumpy and disjointed read that sometimes had me lost in the pages and confused about whose story was whose.

The writing itself was good and there were some great family histories told, but the organization seemed to be the sticking point. Though plenty of time was taken in the gathering of information, it almost feels as if the narrative was thrown together in a hurry to meet a deadline rather than following the painstaking detail that was taken with each individual piece.

Points for the information given, as I did learn a lot about the area, the profession, and the four men who disappeared. It just didn't hit the mark for me.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

This book didn't work for me. I was very interested in the story of these men, lost in the sea (who wouldn't?) but I found the book extremely detailed (is it really necessary to expose personal/intimate details to write a semblance of these men?) and long. I'm not sure I liked the writing either. I'm aware that ARCs are supposed to be less "polished" than definite copies but I still feel that the book needed a lot of editing.
I appreciate the exhaustive research that the author made. I always admired the way writers are able to find relevant information about the themes they are writing about and make it work in a cohesive manner.
I liked finding about this heartbreaking story.

The Lost Boys of Montauk by Amanda Fairbanks is a well-researched and written book about the four men who went missing on a fishing trip. It's a story that delves into the lives of the four men, but it's a bit uneven in execution. Still, lovers of nonfiction and nautical stories will likely appreciate this one.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

This book tells the story of 4 men who lost their lives by the sinking of their commercial fishing boat during a storm. This book tells their stories and of their relatives, and how the sinking of a boat changed the stories and dynamics of an entire community. This a a very good book, the story involves you and you can see that the author did a lot of research of the characters. For times I was a little bit confused about who was who and how the characters were related. I believe this is mostly due to the fact that, as a non-fiction book there are many characters involved in the event and I would not be able to introduce them in a different way. What I liked most was to get a peek of the early days at The Hamptons. To learn how this now very expensive and exclusive area was populated by a working class that used to earn their livelihood from commercial fishing, and care-free surfers enjoying life. This book is a beautiful tribute to those who lived and lost their lives at the sea.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get into this one and I stopped it around 50%. While I didn't like this particularly story, I did like the author's writing so I will be interested to see what she puts out next.

This was a did-not-finish for me. While I like narrative non-fiction, I was having a hard time picking up on the storyline of the tale between the disparate details of individuals' lives. I expected a bit more commentary on the bigger picture of things so maybe I came in with the wrong expectations. I'm sure there's an audience out there for this though so don't let my review stop you from giving it a read for yourself!

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

The Lost Boys of Montauk is the true story of a 4 man crew that took to the sea for tilefish in 1984 of Montauk Point and never returned. The crew was comprised of Dave Connick and Mike Stedman who were both from upper class families and came to Montauk seasonally for vacation, and Michael Vigilant and Scott Clark who were year round residents from working class families. The book is split into sections that semi focus on each member of the crew, their family history, and why they chose to be members of the crew. The book peaks with the fateful day the crew left on a less than par ship that many said was not well suited to the journey to the search for any clue as to the remains of the wreckage.

This book was just ok for me; there were parts of the book that were very compelling and then there were parts where I was wondering, "why should I care about any of this." The author seemed to spend a great deal of time talking about David Connick, a little less about Michael Stedman, very little on Michael Vigilant, and virtually nothing on Scott Clarke. The message throughout the book is the clash of social classes and yet she spends probably the greater majority telling the great history of the Connick family and the Stedmans and doesn't explain why there isn't even a chapter dedicated to Scott Clarke other than the one about his mother.

I think this book would have been better if she spent less time talking about the history of their families (though some history I think was necessary to explain the actions of the men). But reading about the sad life of a rich kid and why he decided to give up his life of money for a life at sea made this book not as interesting as I thought a book about a lost at sea 4 man crew would be.

If you are into nautical tales with personal backstories you might enjoy this.

This was clearly a well-researched book about the sinking of the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown 100 or so miles off of Long Island, NY. Four men lost their lives that day. In this book, Fairbanks introduces us to these men, tells us about their lives and even follows how they acquired the boat.

I had not heard of the Wind Blown before reading this book but gave the book a chance since I enjoy reading the occasional work of narrative non-fiction. The story was interesting on the surface but I think the book could have used some more editing. It felt too long and disjointed and therefor wasn't very good at holding my attention.

Until I got to the end, this was going to be 3.5 stars rounded down to 3 stars, but I decided that the ending (at least for me) helped me see the purpose of the book, so I decided to round up. Throughout the story, I kept thinking that this would do well as a documentary, with photos and video footage (recreated or otherwise), and there were definitely passages where I could almost hear an announcer's voice talking about the story. It makes me wonder what this would be like as an audiobook--somehow I think it would enhance the story for me. Instead, as I slowly made my way through the book, I kept trying to figure out the author's purpose in writing this book. Ultimately, I feel like this story was a way for the survivors to remember the four men, and perhaps for some to find some sense of closure. I came away from this story realizing that Sea is a powerful force, to be respected, feared, and loved and that these men (and many of their families) had a powerful connection to the ocean that has never gone away. I personally don't have that kind of connection, but it makes me appreciate just how hardy and hardworking anyone who lives off of the sea has to be. Oddly enough, it gave me a new appreciation for Jesus' four fishermen disciples. This is not a happy story, as one can imagine, but I like what became of Mike's three sons, especially the oldest, and I think that was in part due to the Charron family's influence and generous hearts.

Overall, I think this story could have been helped with a little bit more editing, but I'm still glad I read it. I knew nothing about Montauk before and had definitely never heard of this tragedy. I thought the author did a good job of helping us see the long-lasting effect of this tragedy on those they left behind, and all the what-ifs that haunt the survivors to this day. Some were hit more permanently and negatively than others, while others have managed to find a way to live with the pain. Remarkably, everyone the author interviewed remembered these days with much clarity, even after all these years. This in itself tells me just how affected these people were. If this book helps some of them find some closure, then blessings to them.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I wanted to love this book so much. I was fascinated that this small town story was made into a book because so often we only read about larger "cases". I also liked the idea that we were going to delve deeper into the survivors left behind.

But it really fell short. A good portion of the book was about Michael Stedman and his wife--less about his children. Then were was another portion on Dave Connick and then it seems the author suddenly realized she had not talked about Michael Vigilant and Scott Clarke and just threw them in at the end which I felt was very disrespectful. There was so, so much focus on the families histories that I felt as though I didn't really connect with the lost men. I wish it was more about the 4 men, their journeys, and them missing but it seemed like a family history of Michael Stedman, Dave Connick and then a bit about Michael and Scott.

I was born and raised on Long Island. Always knowing how hard the fisherman worked the dangerous waters, surrounding this beautiful island. I have seen the docks, where the boats took off from and came back too.. I received a copy of The Lost Boys of Montauk: The True Story of the Wind Blown, Four Men Who Vanished at Sea & the survivors they Left Behind, for an honest review.. I am so glad that Netgalley & Amanda M Fairbanks, for the opportunity to read this gem. The author really did her research.. so much so that this non fiction story read like a fiction story. Her ability to tell the story of how the fisherman, found their calling to fish for a living. How the sea called their names, from swimming to surfing to finally working on commercial fishing boats. The ultimate dram of these fisherman is to own their own boat. The amount of energy, hard work and money it takes to buy that boat. How you can’t be too careful buying that boat, how you should listen to other people’s views and how simple mistakes can lead to tragedy. The captain of the ship never meant for the things that occurred but he didn’t pay attention to the signs and they were all around. It’s a story of how friendship knows no bounds. How a wrong move, ruined so many lives. The author did such a great job describing every part of this story. She did her homework and I could picture every part of Long Island she mentioned. She was able to describe each man and their families. You know how the story ends.. but I didn’t know how it came to pass.. I am so glad I was able to read this. I know the sea is an unforgiving place that takes the hopes and dreams from some men, Fairbanks made me feel that i knew each man and their family personally. This was a four star read for me. I have recommended it to friends & family. I have also shared this on my Instagram page. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did..

This is definitely an interesting subject and you could tell that the author put in a ton of research but this wasn't for me! I DNF'd it because I was getting bored but that is all on me not being a huge non-fiction fan and nothing against the author or the work she put in. This will def be a book that historians would be enjoy..

The Lost Boys of Montauk tells the story – through interviews and much research – of the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown, owned and skippered by husband and father of three boys, Mike Stedman with first mate Dave Connick, twenty-three, and deckhands Michael Vigilant, nineteen and Scott Clarke, eighteen. Wind Blown was a 65 foot long-line trawler; their planned catch would be tilefish, and Wind Blown was Mike’s pride and joy. But many would later say it was unseaworthy, especially seeing as Mike would head 120 nautical miles offshore from Montauk Harbour.

March 1984, when the fishing fleet headed out to sea, was relatively calm, but it wouldn’t be too many days later, and the weather would turn. The fleet’s captains, on hearing the weather report, all headed for home, including Mike. The last person in contact with Mike heard they’d be back in the harbour by lunch time; Mike was a little rattled as the weather was brutal, but they were all fine.

Amanda M. Fairbanks interviewed Mike’s wife Mary in intricate detail; they spent hours together. There were many others she talked to, received photos from and gained insights from. The tragedy of the Wind Blown still haunts survivors to this very day and is the second worst nautical disaster suffered in Montauk’s fishing industry in over 100 years. I found The Lost Boys of Montauk very interesting, tragic and heartbreaking. I also felt it was too long and drawn out, and quite choppy in its delivery. That said, it’s a part of history I hadn’t heard of, and I’m glad to have read it. Recommended.

With thanks to Gallery Books, Simon & Schuster UK via NetGalley for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.