A Song Of Sea And Shore

In youth the author's heart put to sea to search for a love that stands the tests of time. Now, he and his wife go on missions of mercy, occasionally by sea; and the small ketch they call “Tiare Maori” is being prepared to sail on “the wings of the dawn”. The Vinson family's “Uncle Carl” is known as the “patriarch” and “father of the two ocean navy”; the author’s dream is to see a fleet of vessels commissioned for service in the Kingdom of God, flying Christ's ensign and setting sail to spread an aroma of blossomed “Loving-kindness” with which God desires to crown every life.

A treaty broken. A promise forgotten. A friendship lost. When the Sea Queen threatens war with the land folk, her youngest daughter Nerina defies her by heading to shore to warn them, and return to Prince Kai, the boy she's loved ever since she was a child. But tricked by the Sea Witch, Neri finds herself unable to communicate who she is, and baffled that everyone seems to have forgotten that mermaids exist at all. Mysteries and heartbreak surround both the lands of sea and shore, and to save them, Neri and Kai must be willing to sacrifice anything...

One woman must confront her grief when she falls in love with a struggling single-mom whose son reminds her of the child she lost.

Setsuko loves the sea. She swims its shallows. She dives its depths. But she worries that her friends have chosen to abandon her way of life. Then she meets a whale who also fears he is the last of his kind. In return for giving him hope, he gifts her a song which she uses to remind people of the beauty of the ocean. Setsuko took the song and made it her own. They played together from the first crisp light of morning until the setting of the evening sun. Everyone who heard Setsuko's song was filled with the wonder of the sea. They remembered the beauty and mystery of the ocean. A story of an unlikely friendship, Setsuko and her friend the whale have one thing in common - their love of the sea. Much like the revered ama-san, - women who have been diving off the coast of the Shima peninsula in Japan for over 2,000 years - Setsuko is a strong girl who is on the path to becoming one of these real-life mermaids.

Following the fantastic success of his bestselling memoir, Where I Belong, Great Big Sea front man Alan Doyle returns with a hilarious, heartwarming account of leaving Newfoundland and discovering Canada for the first time. Armed with the same personable, candid style found in his first book, Alan Doyle turns his perspective outward from Petty Harbour toward mainland Canada, reflecting on what it was like to venture away from the comforts of home and the familiarity of the island. Often in a van, sometimes in a bus, occasionally in a car with broken wipers "using Bob's belt and a rope found by Paddy's Pond" to pull them back and forth, Alan and his bandmates charted new territory, and he constantly measured what he saw of the vast country against what his forefathers once called the Daemon Canada. In a period punctuated by triumphant leaps forward for the band, deflating steps backward and everything in between--opening for Barney the Dinosaur at an outdoor music festival, being propositioned at a gas station mail-order bride service in Alberta, drinking moonshine with an elderly church-goer on a Sunday morning in PEI--Alan's few established notions about Canada were often debunked and his own identity as a Newfoundlander was constantly challenged. Touring the country, he also discovered how others view Newfoundlanders and how skewed these images can sometimes be. Heartfelt, funny and always insightful, these stories tap into the complexities of community and Canadianness, forming the portrait of a young man from a tiny fishing village trying to define and hold on to his sense of home while navigating a vast and diverse and wonder-filled country.