Winner of the Word Guild Award for Contemporary Novel of 2014!

 

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GRACE IRWIN AWARD!

 

THE UNFORGIVING SEA

 

The Unforgiving Sea is the story of a 13-year-old boy who turns his back on God after his father, a CF-18 pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces, dies in a catastropic plane crash.  After his father's death, he and his mother drive across country from Alberta to his mom's hometown of Shipwreck Cove, Nova Scotia.  Logan and his mom move into his grandmother's house, which she, a nurse, operates as a special care home.  To his horror, Logan is the lone male in a house with six women, four of whom he considers not so much physically disabled as just plain crazy.  He despises living in the small seaside fishing town with its incessant wind and fog.  He struggles to adjust from military life to civilian life.  Bitter and angry, Logan begins to skip school to go lobster fishing and lying to his mom and grandmother.  Things quickly escalate to stealing other fishermen's catches, cutting their trap lines, and befriending the most evil, ruthless man in town.  This sets off a chain of tragic events and Logan finds himself at sea during a storm with his very life in peril. 

 

The Unforgiving Sea is a coming-of-age story about living with unspeakable grief and loss and of trying to find your way back to God.  It is heart-wrenching, shocking, yet is lightened with humour and romance that will grip the reader until the final chapter.