By: Jackie French
ISBN: 9781867243489
HQ Fiction (2024)
I’ve long enjoyed Jackie French’s novels, and I was delighted to find that “The Sea Captain’s Wife” is another excellent historical fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed being drawn into another world, and the characters I met there.
Mair has lived all her life on a remote island dominated by women. The men leave for long stretches of time, making their livings as sailors. Each return to the island is a joyous one, reuniting them with the women who wait (and bringing some of the goods the island cannot create itself).
Recently a tidal wave drowned nearly all the men of the island, severely disrupting the rhythm of life on the island. For Mair, the wave brought sorrow with the death of her fiancé. So she now walks the beaches of the island, looking for a husband. It’s a long standing tradition on the island, where periodically sailors wash up after wrecks.
Mair doesn’t expect to find someone on her first walk, but she does. And Michael is indeed a man she can love, and who can love her. But he has obligations in the wider world, and marrying him will mean that Mair must undertake the long and dangerous journey to Australia.
Mair expects challenges, but also expects her love for Michael will help her meet them. However, the challenges are far greater than she could imagine, and soon she’s not sure whether their love will indeed be enough.
This is the story of a strong willed woman who leaves the home she has always known, with its’ promise of a comforting and predictable life. She longs for adventure and to see new things, but finds the social rules she must respect confronting and difficult. Although a fair bit of this is fairly specific to the time period she lives in, most readers will find it easy to empathise with her struggle with other people’s expectations versus her personal inclinations and instincts.
Mair is a vivid character, and most readers will quickly fall in love with her. Michael, too, is vivid. He may be a little less sympathetic, given how little he grasps Mair’s feelings, but overall readers will also empathise with and care for him.
Michael’s grandmother is a particularly delightful character; many of us will aspire to be like her when we’re “old”!
French can’t help herself – she has to slip a little tension and mystery in as well. These work well, being both realistic and well paired with the romance that is a substantial part of the story.
This is an engaging, absorbing, and entertaining novel. I found the last third surprisingly moving (I’m a bit of a tough nut to crack on that front). French’s many fans will be justifiably pleased. If you’re somehow coming to French for the first time, you should enjoy this immensely.
You may be interested in my reviews of other books by Jackie French:
Other Dreams, Other Lives 