When mothers reflect on raising their child(red), it sometimes seems what we remember are the mistakes made, instead of the happiness and love that is really at the center of being a mother. The complexity of motherhood lies at the center of Julia Kelly's novel, The Fisherman's Gift. The protagonist is Dorothy, a victim of an abusive mother, who taught her daughter that she did not deserve love and friendship. As a result, Dorothy feels herself an outsider, unliked and unwanted. She learns to reject the world before she can be rejected yet again.

The Fisherman's Gift is melancholy and sad in many places, but it is also moving and rewarding. In many ways, Dorothy is a late bloomer, and The Fisherman's Gift is a coming of age novel, where is takes Dorothy 20 years to finally transition from wounded to resolute, and in doing so become a real member of the small fishing town where she lives as an adult. Kelly explores motherhood, social class, effects of lies, gossip, jealousy, and isolation. In the center of the novel, Dorothy accepts magical realism as a way to reclaim what has been lost. She also learns that living in the past and focusing on the mistakes of the past make it impossible to live in the present or future. The Fisherman's Gift ends with revolution and the promise of possibilities.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing this ARC for me to read and review. These comments are my honest thoughts. I liked The Fisherman's Gift and I do recommend it.

“The Light Between Oceans meets The Snow Child”. Is the opening description of this book and I couldn’t have said it better than Goodreads has. Set in a small fishing village in Scotland in 1900, the story opens with a young boy washing up on the beach. The Schoolteacher, Dorothy, agrees to care for him while efforts are made to discover his origins. This is no easy task for Dorothy, as she lost her own son to the sea some years prior to the current events. The fisherman, Joseph, who found the child, has shared a past with Dorothy, complicating their interactions. I loved the author’s style in tackling this story and keeping it in the long ago time and place it needed to be throughout and thought it accurately portrayed toe sensibilities of the time in a poignant way.

An aura of melancholy seems to invade the lives of ipeople in a small seaside Scottish village. Against a backdrop of rough waters they live hard lives and anyone new brings suspicion and conjecture. Gossip is ongoing; secrets abound; resentment festers.. Such an atmosphere affects the characters’ behavior and decision-making. When Moses, the child of Dorothy, the school teacher, is lost to the sea, and years later Joseph, her lover, rescues a similar child from the water, neighbors question. What is this child’s story.? There are rare glimpses of kindness and, under the guiding hand of a masterful author like Julia R. Kelly, the reader finds these moments and in doing so discovers the truth.

In the small fishing village of Skerry, in turn of the century Scotland, a young boy washes up on the beach after a severe winter storm, and is saved by a local fisherman, Joseph. His appearance stirs up the past, as the local schoolteacher, Dorothy, lost her young son to a similar winter storm some years back, and his body was never discovered. Eventually, Dorothy becomes responsible for the care of the young boy, and she becomes increasingly convinced that the similarities between her son Moses and this young unidentified boy are no mistake, even though nearly 15 years have gone by since Moses was lost.
This book is an exploration of what it means to be a mother, and how we can overcome our guilt to mourn and move on from loss. Communication, or lack thereof is also a strong theme explored in the plot. Slowly, the book works its way through the past, showing us how Dorothy moved to Skerry from Edinburgh as a young woman, and through to the eventual loss of Moses. This book is difficult in its subject matter, in that it tackles motherhood and being a member of a community when one isn't fully welcomed, and is presented with no gloss. Overall, I found the character development over the course of the novel to be very well done and realistic. The conclusion as well, as Dorothy finally comes to terms with the loss of her son and forgives herself for her perceived mistakes as a wife and mother and finally embraces her life and takes a chance at love again, after several missteps, was especially heart wrenching and lovely.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

I received a complimentary copy of this book "The Fisherman's Gift" and all opinions expressed are my own. This book was kinda a slow burn for me. It did pick up but it took me a long time to read. Overall I liked it.

The year is 1900, and a winter storm is brewing in a small fishing village in Scotland. As the waves crash, a young boy is washed up to shore. He bears an uncanny resemblance to a local teacher Dorothy's son who disappeared at sea many years ago, never to be found. What follows is a chain of events in which past and present collide. 

I have to admit that I did struggle at times with the heaviness, the bleakness of this story. Between the themes of grief and guilt that permeate the book and the various unlikable characters, I found it easy to get weighed down by the sadness of it all. On the flip side of that same coin, of course, lies the undeniable fact that Kelly's writing is so poignant that I found myself thus affected. The Fisherman's Gift is atmospheric, lyrical, and utterly vivid, bringing the fishing village and its cast of characters to life. This isn't a book you will want to binge in one sitting, but rather a slow burn read to really sink into. If you find yourself craving a beautiful, desolate read now and then, this is the perfect book to pick up.

The Fisherman's Gift by Julia R. Kelly is a touching story that is set during the winter of 1900 in a snow-covered Scottish fishing village.
We meet Dorothy, a school teacher, who witnesses a young boy who washes up on the beach and he resembles her own son lost at sea years before. When Dorothy takes the boy in her care, the local villagers become entangled with her and the young boy.
The small close-knit villagers thrive on gossip but they share deep emotions and pain. There are moments of tenderness as Dorothy tries to navigate her own grief and a growing connection with local fisherman Joseph and the boy. I really liked Joseph's character.
The author's writing style is lyrical and pulled me right into early 20th-century Scotland.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Publishing for an advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was such a sad and difficult book - some of it relatable in the sense of motherhood and how easy it is to blame ourselves for things that go wrong, but a lot of the sadness and grief in the book is because the characters treated each other horribly thru most of the book.

As the author states in the beginning, she wanted to paint a picture of how grief and guilt can permeate motherhood, and I think the book does that part well. You felt for Dorothy - and some of the other mothers at various times - and I think it was very realistic.

However, so much of the book I struggled to like because I greatly disliked almost all the women in it. They were mean, petty, shaming, and just plain unkind. So much of everyone’s lives would have been different if they just offered a tiny bit of kindness and grace to each other, and just talked a bit (not gossiping but actually communicated) rather than making assumptions of the worst of each other. The same goes for Dorothy with Joseph also. Yes, the end started to turn around but I just wanted *someone* to be kind earlier than the last minute. It kind of ruined the book for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.

A beautiful lyrical and emotional tale. I liked how the author presented the characters unveiling their grief and expectations. It's one to not binge but take each chapter slowly, taking the emotion in.

"The Fisherman’s Gift" is a remarkable novel, though it can be challenging to read at times due to its profound sadness. The emotional weight of the story is palpable, leaving a lasting impact. This book powerfully illustrates the effects of guilt on an individual and their life. Set in a bygone era within a quaint fishing village in Scotland, it introduces Dorothy, a woman with a distant demeanor who arrives to teach at the local school. Tragedy strikes when her son, Moses, is taken by the sea. Years later, Joseph discovers another child who mysteriously emerges from the ocean, resembling Moses. The arrival of this child profoundly transforms Dorothy, Joseph, and the entire village. Despite the pervasive melancholy, the prose is beautifully crafted, making it a highly recommended read.

The novel opens in 1900 in Skerry, a small and isolated Scottish fishing village. A young boy has been washed up on shore, and the local teacher Dorothy agrees to take him in while the minister works to find his family. In many ways, the boy resembles Dorothy’s son who was taken by the sea many years earlier.

The child’s arrival sets in motion the revelation of secrets held close for many years by members of the community. Nearly without exception, these secrets are captured in Dorothy’s thought: Why is it that we only ever remember the things we did wrong?

I really enjoyed the unwinding of the backstories of the many villagers, and their own realizations of events that have driven their lives, and the descriptions of the locale are excellent.

What a gem! I loved every page. Set on the Scottish coast in 1900, The Fisherman’s Gift captures the essence of a small fishing village with wonderfully authentic characters. The author does an incredible job of bringing these characters to life, making them feel real and relatable. The story is so vivid and atmospheric that I could easily picture every scene. It’s a deeply moving look at grief, love, and the mix of tragedy and hope that comes with them. The writing is absolutely beautiful—I found myself stopping more than once just to reread a sentence and take it all in. Highly recommended! Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and author, for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

This is a beautifully written book filled with descriptions of life in a village on the skirts of Scotland in 1900—cold that would rattle your teeth, briny gusts that fair knock you over on the sands, death possible on every fishing trip—but with enough moments of warmth from the villagers to make it bearable.
Dorothy, who would always be the newcomer no matter the years she has lived there, has always yearned for the simple things, a husband who loves her, a child or two, a place she can turn into a home. But Dorothy has never had a mother's love, a mother's pleasure in watching her child be a child, a mother's support, and now she is flailing in the throes of superstition, rejection, and loss. Forever watched and judged and dead inside, it all changes when she is offered the change to become the temporary caregiver of a child just like the one she lost. How it plays out is wonderfully put together. A very satisfying read.

The Fisherman’s Gift (Coming March 2025)
By Julia R. Kelly
Simon & Schuster, 320 pages
★★★★

Scotland, 1900: A small fishing village in a land where strict Calvinist morals prevail, though they have eroded in cities like Edinburgh. That’s where Dorothy, a young teacher, was raised. Now she stands on the rocky, windswept shores of Skerry, where she is about to become the new school mistress in a wee fishing village far from “Auld Reekie.” From the start she is viewed with suspicion because she’s a city gal who knows nothing of the customs and rhythms of her new home. The fact that she is terrified is viewed by locals as being aloof and uppity.

The Fisherman’s Gift is the debut novel from Julia R. Kelly and it’s a good one, though she admits she was inspired in part by the 2016 film The Light Between Oceans and perhaps borrows too much from it. Nonetheless, Kelly gives us a portrait of an isolated Scottish village and a tale that is by turns hopeful, sad, and inspiring. Kelly uses a then/now structure that becomes a puzzle for readers to piece together. She also employs multiple points of view.

When Dorothy arrives her only true allies are the minister and Joseph, a fisherman, handyman, and handsome bachelor. In good Victorian style, though, Kelly veers away from any straightforward romance. Hers is a series of doomed romances and missed cues. Dorothy casts aside her hopes when she discovers that Joseph is a regular visitor to the family of two young sisters, Jeanie and Agnes, and that it seems to be a given that Agnes will marry Joseph. He, however, is either not the marrying kind or has placed his hopes elsewhere.

In the “then” sections we learn that Dorothy marries William Gray, an unexciting but steady man, much to the chagrin of his sister Jane, who dislikes Dorothy. Agnes ends up with a very unreliable man. The novel’s crux is that Dorothy gives birth to Moses, who becomes her heart’s delight. Joseph always seems to be about to show Moses how to do things and even makes him toys, which infuriates Dorothy as she thinks it's inappropriate. ( I shan’t spoil why!) Alas, when he’s still a lad, Moses ventures out one night, makes his way to the beach, and drowns. Dorothy blames herself for the tragedy and disappears into herself to the point where she is estranged from William.

The ”gift” of the book’s title occurs in the “now” sections. A young boy washes ashore and is near death when Joseph carries him from the beach to the minister’s home. He is nursed back to health and is the spitting image of Moses. Could it be a miracle? He is sent into Dorothy’s care and she is torn between reason and faith, as well as intellectual and emotional truth. The child speaks what seems to be gibberish, but a bonding unfolds with Dorothy.

The boy’s origin is one of several mysteries embedded within The Fisherman’s Gift. On a more prosaic level, Kelly’s novel is a close look at village relationships in a place where the sleet blows sideways from the ocean and snowy winters are long. Imagine the loneliness in a hamlet in which outsiders tends to remain so in the minds of locals long after they’ve lived there. In Dorothy’s case, she wins over some of her neighbors, whilst others keep her at arm’s length. Norah Barclay, the village gossip, is always ready to dispense news, even if much of it skirts the line between reality and nonsense. Dorothy does gain an ally in Mrs. Brown, the widow who runs the store in Skerry, but her shop is also where women gather to dispense and hear gossip. (For men, it’s the local pub.)

The Fisherman’s Gift keeps you guessing until near the end. Even then, your book group can bat around exactly what the “gift” is. It’s too bad the book won’t release until March. Though there’s nothing particularly Christmas-themed in it, it feels like a novel for the holiday season. Perhaps late winter/early spring will have to do.

Rob Weir

#TheFishermansGift #NetGalley

The reason I wouldn’t submit this book into my curriculum is that I teach in a Christian classroom and my students are very young.
I enjoyed reading this book and I wish you all the best of luck.

This is a story of so many things. The basic story is of a young woman starting out in her professional life, desperately wanting to fit in within the small seaside town she has moved to. She falls in love, marries, and has a child who is lost at sea during a storm. Years later she takes care of a young child, seemingly so much like her own child, miraculously found alive on the beach after a storm. Could the sea have given her son back, as strange as that may seem? There is folklore, grief explored, and how self image and shame play into lost opportunities. #Thefishermansgift #netgalley

A beautiful story about the journey of a mother’s grief and guilt.

Dorthy is the new school mistress in a little fishing town Skelly. The town is full of gossips and she isn’t welcomed well. She meets Joseph who is a fisherman and they briefly fall in love. Life pulls them apart before they even have a chance to live out their love story.

A little boy is found from the sea who is similar to the son Dorothy lost. She is asked to watch over him until they can find his parents. Through watching and caring for him her past and the guilt and grief she has tried to bury surfaces. And she has to face and walk through the pain and hurt that has been shoved down through the years. She has to confront people and herself through this journey. She finds healing and closure through helping this little boy.

Being a mother myself so many parts of this story are so accurate, raw, relatable and hard to read.

Dorothy lost her son years ago during a storm on a small fishing island in Scotland in the 1900s. Now a snowstorm is hitting the island and a boy washes shore that is her son’s age when he disappeared. Long held secrets are revealed and we slowly find out what happened to her son Moses all those years ago. This started out slow for me and then midway took a turn that made the slow build worth it. This was a heartbreaking and beautiful book on grief and loneliness and the setting perfectly adds to the feelings of isolation in this book. The weather also plays nicely into the plot. The storm that took Dorothy’s son and the storm that brought her another boy his age years later. Loved this story , loved how it unfolded even though it broke my heart. It does end on a hopeful, redemptive note though. Love the characters and all their richly layered stories. The author nailed this debut for me.

This was such a delight to read. It was such a hard story to read because of how painful it was. It’s written beautifully in prose and beautifully intertwines hope, sorrow and love. The atmosphere was there and really engulfs you in the time and place. Definitely will think about this story for a long time.

This is a lovely and moving story about a tight-knit community and what happens when long-buried secrets come to light. I especially enjoyed how the author has so carefully crafted each character, including the fisherman, the school teacher, Moses, and the mystery boy. The "then" and "now" structure turned out to be a good way to tell this particular story, and it works to great effect. I liked seeing how the intricate layers unfolded. The ending provides a satisfactory conclusion. This novel will be great for book clubs.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-galley; all opinions in my review are 100% my own.