Three novels, three very different journeys, each shaped by longing, secrecy, and the possibility of reinvention.
“Seascraper” by Benjamin Wood
This small but enormously compelling novel was long-listed for the 2025 Booker Prize. Benjamin Wood’s “Seascraper” tells the story of Thomas Flett, a young man in northern England laboring as a shrimper, following in the tradition of his grandfather.
Rising at 5 a.m., Thomas takes his workhorse to the gloomy shore, scraping for shrimp to sell in the afternoon, for a subsistence wage — earning just enough to keep the household going for him and his mother. Resigned to the daily grind, he nurses a secret dream of playing guitar as a folk musician and quietly longs for the sister of a neighborhood friend.
His fortunes seem to shift when a stranger from the Hollywood movie world arrives and hires him as a paid guide for location scouting on a new film project. Thomas glimpses glamour — rides in a sleek car, drinks at a swanky hotel — and for the first time, allows himself to imagine a world beyond the one that confines him. But how much should he trust his luck?
“Seascraper” is lyrical and beautifully paced, haunting yet hopeful. Wood’s novel resonates with the enduring idea that it is possible — even necessary — to dare to imagine who you might become, and what kind of life you might claim.
“The Predicament” by William Boyd
“Predicament” is the second novel in William Boyd’s planned Gabriel Dax trilogy. Readers first met Dax in “Gabriel’s Moon,” where he emerged as a Cold War-era travel writer turned reluctant spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service.
Dax is in the thrall of his MI6 handler, an alluring older woman, Faith Green, who oversees his assignments and with whom he’s had a brief affair. Under the guise of researching a new travel book about the world’s rivers, the self-proclaimed “useful idiot” is drawn deeper into perilous assignments, taking him from a quiet countryside cottage back to London, Guatemala City, and Berlin, and into the center of political assassination plots.
Dax proves to have a natural aptitude for espionage as an undercover spy, and continues in this dangerous world in no small part for the chance to resume his fraught relationship with Green.
Boyd’s wry storytelling and deft plot twists make for a solid spy yarn — he’s been compared to le Carré. There are MI6 operatives, CIA agents, double-crosses, and shady local figures. Is Dax being set up? Is there a conspiracy? With references to John F. Kennedy and the geopolitical tension of the 1960s, history is woven into this suspenseful satisfying narrative.
“The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans
I include this novel because so many readers have connected deeply with it. “The Correspondent” tells the story of Sybil, a retired, divorced woman who reflects on her life through the letters and emails she’s written to her friends, family, ex-colleagues, and even authors she admires.
Through her correspondence, Sybil’s sharp, biting, and sometimes wryly funny personality comes into focus. (The character might remind you of Elizabeth’s Strout’s prickly Olive Kitteridge, but this novel is not of that caliber.) A former lawyer and chief clerk to a circuit judge, Sybil has led a full and intellectually rich life, with passions for gardening and literature. As the novel unfolds, layers of her history are gradually revealed, and the power of her letters to connect with people become clear: they offer guidance and support to a troubled young man, tentatively open the door to a new romantic possibility, and reconnect her to a wider world. At the same time, her writing exposes long buried grief — the guilt surrounding her son’s death, a strained relationship with her daughter, and a hidden family secret she has never fully faced.
This is Sybil’s journey of self-discovery, and ultimately finding solace in chronicling a life well-lived. Her letters become a way of “making sense of the world” — repairing broken connections, confronting unresolved pain, and opening herself to making meaningful new relationships later in life. It’s an inspirational message about communication, forgiveness, and the quiet healing power of words.
