The Boy from the Sea: the most heart-warming debut of 2025
Feb 2025 · Pan Macmillan
Ebook
336
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
infoThis book will become available on February 6, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
An Observer Best Debut of 2025
An ordinary town. An extraordinary boy.
The heart-warming, life-affirming debut story of a baby found on a beach and the fisherman who adopts him.
'Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment' - Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
'A joy . . . vivid, loving and genuinely funny' The Sunday Times
1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who adopts him, the boy will become a source of fascination and hope for a town caught in the storm of a rapidly changing world.
Ambrose, a man more comfortable at sea than on land, brings Brendan into his home out of love. But it is a decision that will fracture his family and force this man – more comfortable at sea than on land – to try to understand himself and those he cares for.
Set over twenty years, Garrett Carr’s The Boy From the Sea is a novel about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world. It is an exploration of the ties that make us and bind us, as a family and community move irresistibly into the future.
Readers love this gorgeous debut:
'Books are meant to change you, to shape you, and to heal you, and The Boy From the Sea does all those things' *****
'You feel like you’re right there in the village' *****
'Stunning. I found myself waking up at 5am because I was desperate to read more' *****
'Felt like I was stepping off life's treadmill and immersing myself in another world' *****
'Left me feeling warm and satisfied when I finished it and I’ve thought about it daily since then' *****
An ordinary town. An extraordinary boy.
The heart-warming, life-affirming debut story of a baby found on a beach and the fisherman who adopts him.
'Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment' - Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
'A joy . . . vivid, loving and genuinely funny' The Sunday Times
1973. In a close-knit community on Ireland’s west coast, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Named Brendan by Ambrose Bonnar, the fisherman who adopts him, the boy will become a source of fascination and hope for a town caught in the storm of a rapidly changing world.
Ambrose, a man more comfortable at sea than on land, brings Brendan into his home out of love. But it is a decision that will fracture his family and force this man – more comfortable at sea than on land – to try to understand himself and those he cares for.
Set over twenty years, Garrett Carr’s The Boy From the Sea is a novel about a restless boy trying to find his place in the world. It is an exploration of the ties that make us and bind us, as a family and community move irresistibly into the future.
Readers love this gorgeous debut:
'Books are meant to change you, to shape you, and to heal you, and The Boy From the Sea does all those things' *****
'You feel like you’re right there in the village' *****
'Stunning. I found myself waking up at 5am because I was desperate to read more' *****
'Felt like I was stepping off life's treadmill and immersing myself in another world' *****
'Left me feeling warm and satisfied when I finished it and I’ve thought about it daily since then' *****
About the author
Garrett Carr teaches creative writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, and he is a frequent contributor to The Guardian and The Irish Times. His non-fiction The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. The Boy from the Sea is his debut novel.
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