The Lobster Kings

March 10, 2014
Zentner’s second novel (after Touch) is brutal and beautiful. Heroine Cordelia Kings is a member of the legendary lobster-fishing Kings family, which has been plying their trade for 300 years on Loosewood Island, Maine. Her family line began with painter and fisherman Brumfitt Kings, who believed his wife was a gift from the sea. Gifts come with a price, and there is a legend that the Kings suffer from a curse; the curse appears to be real when Cordelia’s brother, Scotty, dies (he was expected to be heir to the family lobster company, but, as it turns out, wasn’t the waterman Cordelia is). As times change, so do threats. Lobstermen from nearby James Harbor moved into the Loosewood fishing territory some time ago; now they’re also running drugs. But Loosewood’s small population (including Cordelia’s two younger sisters and her tyrannical father) can’t wait around for the authorities to react; they take care of things themselves, igniting a spark that starts the book’s escalating conflict. Zentner gets the reader to root for Cordelia very early on. His fusion of myth and mission, fury and beauty, as well as the palpable sense of place in this unique corner of the world add up to a memorable tale.

May 15, 2014

Steeped in the lore of the sea with a nod to the grand scope of Shakespeare's King Lear, Zentner's satisfying family saga (following Touch) explores the Kings family's mythical past and the unsettling truth of their future. The family has been like royalty on Loosewood Island since Brumfitt Kings, whose paintings and journals reveal the family history, arrived from Ireland 300 years ago. Woody Kings, the aging patriarch, assumed his son Scotty would be the rightful heir, but tragedy forces Woody to put his oldest daughter Cordelia at the helm of the Queen Jane. All but invisible to her father, Cordelia has worked on her father's boat since she was a young girl and has grown into a courageous, independent woman in a world dominated by men. The one true daughter, she steps up to confront drug runners and ruthless poachers threatening the Kings's age-old territory. Unsure of her place in a family circle shared by two sisters, Rena and Carly, Cordelia puts aside sibling rivalry and her own promising love interest to fight for her family's legacy. VERDICT Award-winning Zentner's literary tour de force takes hold of the reader's imagination and doesn't let go. Extraordinary storytelling not to be missed.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

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