What a lush and wonderful tale. Some of my favorite titles are familiar stories with a change in perspective. This one did not disappoint! Would make a perfect book club discussion too!

This was a slightly different story to the usual fare. As we meet the women in each generation, and the difficulties they encounter, we travel to different places and times. I did feel that this felt like reading a short story, but as the book progressed, it all fell into place. Themes of motherhood, friendship, missing fathers and longing all come out in this book. I enjoyed the writing style and the prose about the whales was beautiful.

I really enjoyed reading Wild and Distant Seas. It’s a generational story told from the perspectives of each woman, from mother to daughter to granddaughter. The story is loosely related to the tale of Moby Dick in that some characters from it are included, but this book more focuses on the love and loss between generations of women in this family. Each woman has a special power of perception, which added a bit of magical realism. My big takeaway from this story was that it left me thinking about how much of a role both holding on to someone and letting them go plays within familial relationships.

'I wanted to believe I had changed the story...Yet I came to see I had wrought something far more fragile, an illusion etched on a pane of glass'.

Evangeline is gifted with the power to re-shape others' memories, 'I could suggest to someone that a recent moment was not quite as they remembered it'. When Evangeline's husband dies, she increasingly relies on this ability in order to maintain the facade of her life despite her husband's premature departure. However, as with all lives based upon a fragile web of deceit, increasingly, her safety feels fleeting and her loneliness more permanent. However, a brief encounter with Ishmael, before he sets sail on his infamous voyage, forever changes Evangeline's life and that of future generations.

'Wild and Distant Seas' is a story created from one of the minor characters in 'Moby Dick', Evangeline Hussey, who ran the 'Try Pots Inn' and was known for her chowder. Evangeline, her daughter Rachel, granddaughter Mara, and great-granddaughter Antonia all possess varying powers of the mind which are used in their personal quests for Ishmael. It becomes clear that Ishmael represents the search for belonging and meaning rather than a literal pursuit. As the story comes full circle, there's a realisation that interfering and changing fates, in order to get what you want, does not in fact get you anywhere you need to be, 'To live an illusion was to live in fear...'.

You’ll enjoy this if you appreciate literary fiction, mixed with magical realism which gives an ethereal flare to the story.