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Mr Carver’s Whale

Hughes, Lyn

Our story begins when a sea chest of books is delivered to Antonio Mateus João Carvalho Cabral, the youngest son of the Carvalhos family on the whaling island of Pico, in the Azores… but that’s just the start of this darkly charming story of love, death, desire, atonement… and whales.

This is the story of clever, crippled Antonio Mateus João Carvalho Cabral, his handsome, seafaring, whale-harpooning brother Marcelinho, and the beautiful, tempestuous woman they both love, Margarida. Half a world away, it is also the story of Alicja Brajakovic – now going by the name of Alice Binney – who is running from ghosts in her past and well past believing anyone could ever fall in love with her.

Sweeping from the volcanic Pico Island to a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland, all the way to the tiny whaling town of Eden on the south coast of New South Wales where our story ends, this is a gorgeous and enthralling story about the crimes we commit in the name of love, the price we pay, and how we can atone for what we’ve done.

Witty, tender, poignant, delightful and moving, Mr Carver’s Whale, with its dream-like quality, the constant mysterious presence of whales, and just a touch of Wes Anderson whimsy, is a true literary delight – one for fans of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Rush Oh! and A Gentleman in Moscow.

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