The Fisherman’s Gift – Julia Kelly

Published By: Harvill Secker
Pages: 368
Released On: 06/03/2025

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.

Bursting with tension and tenderness, this is an exquisite love story that delves into the griefs and hopes that can lie behind village gossip.

*****

Thanks to NetGalley and Harvill Secker for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

This is just exquisite storytelling and character creation.

It flits between “then” and “now”, which can be a difficult thing to do, to ensure it is still smooth to read but gives us the information we need, but Julia has managed it perfectly. At first there’s more “now” but it soon becomes more “then”, and I felt both parts were fascinating.

I was fully enraptured by everything about it. It’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel because it’s so accomplished. It is sad without feeling morose, hopeful without feeling too sickly sweet.

This had such short chapters which I appreciated. It really helps move the story along, and adds to the somewhat frantic nature of the story. And on a personal note, I cannot stand overly long chapters. I like quick ones that I can say “I’ll just read a couple more chapters”, instead of flicking through trying to find how much is left.

Dorothy is our leading lady and she’s fabulous. She keeps herself to herself, a bit of a closed book but I really felt for her instantly. She’s had a very hard time where women would be expected to be at home with a husband and a family. My heart was instantly hers. And then our two male characters are Joseph and William who we get to know more during the “then” segments. They’ve both clearly got their secrets but I found them both equally as charming and caring.

And then there’s a plethora of background characters, some in one section or the other, and some straddling both. Some are what you’d call goodies and others baddies, but mostly they’re a bit of both. They all have their own place in the story, as well as their own part of play in Dorothy’s story.

It is an historical novel, but there’s also romance and mystery; there’s a bit of adventure, mostly narrative, good character exploration, and about family and community dynamics, but it’s balanced perfectly. It’s about grief, love, loss, family, friendship, your position in a community, parenthood, old and new love, lost love – it’s everything and it’s all done so well.

There’s a lot I like about it – the plot, the characters, everything really. But at its heart, it’s just a really beautiful piece of writing to read. It’s so poetic but not distractingly so. Julia has touched on the topics of grief and child loss to sensitively and lovingly that it’s hard to imagine someone could write such a thing without experience, and so my heart goes out to her if that’s the case and to all others in that situation; but even if not, she’s just got this raw talent to explore complex emotions without making a spectacle about them and I found myself in tears at several points.

I know I keep repeating myself but it’s simply an incredibly moving, beautiful story with first-rate characters. I was bereft when I finished it, knowing I no longer had it on my shelf to read. I rarely reread books – as I just have too many new ones to read – but I think this may be an exception. I think I’ll get more out of it, subtle nuances that may have been missed the first time. And I will look forward to rereading it as much as I enjoyed reading it the first time, perhaps even more.