TheBookette.co.uk - Review date: June 21, 2010

On the Broken Shore is an intriguing story of family, loss, grief and obsession.

Leo Kemp is an Austrailian living in Cape Cod with his wife Margot and his daughter Sam. He and his family are still trying to come to terms with the death of his son. Both Margot and Leo are stuggling with the guilt surrounding the circumstances of their son's death. Leo should never have taken him out on the water. Margot should have stopped him. Their daughter Sam is living with two parents who are strangers to each other. Leo is absorbed to the point of obsession with his research into sea mammals - particularly seals. Margot is burying her grief in her drinking and her illicit liasons with a local fisherman. 

When I was reading this story, I felt like it was almost a retrospective look at one man's life. A character study of a man who was intelligent, passionate and charismatic. His students adore him. His wife was completely besotted by him when they first met. His daughter wants his undivided love and attention. Whether it is his success that drives him further and further into his work or his grief at losing his son is open to interpretation. But his obsession with saving the seals of Cape Cod and the surrounding areas eventually leads to his dismissal from the Institute who employ him also as a teacher. Leo is not the sort of man to give up easily. He decides to take his students out on the field trip he promised them and after a freak tsumani, he is thrown overboard. The coastguard and local fishermen search for Leo or at least his body but when it doesn't turn up, his best friend begins to believe in the impossible. Could Leo have become the sea mammal that he dreamed of in his childhood?

The narrative in this story is gripping and like the sea itself compels you to throw yourself in at the deep end. Leo is an enigma which I hadn't really solved even at the end of the novel. Sometimes I felt the pull of the novel was weakened by the use of excessive detail. As the reader we learn much about the life of sea mammals and the communication of seals, the regulations governing fishing in the area and in the wider world. I am left wondering how much we really needed to know. Was it important to know these things to get to the heart of Leo's obsession? Perhaps. For in my mind it was obsession not grief that drove Leo to make the choices that he did. I think he was a very selfish character who wanted to be a better man than he was. Others will say that Margot was the selfish one. It is obvious that she could not forgive Leo for what happened to their son. 

Overall, I enjoyed this story. It conjured the sea, the waves, the mesmerising depth of the ocean and all its mysteries. It told a story full of loss and guilt which was engrossing. At times a little slow perhaps but none the less an intricate tale which would be a great beach read for the summer.

Review by Becky

HarperCollins.co.uk

Have you ever wanted to just leave everything and disappear?

Can the instinct for survival overcome almost anything…? Leo Kemp's life should be idyllic. He has a job that he loves at the Institute of Marine Biology and he lives in Cape Cod with his wife and daughter. But beneath the tranquil surface of their lives, heartbreak lingers; a few years ago their son was drowned in an accident at sea and the family cannot come to terms with his death.

When Leo loses his job thanks to his outspoken views, he decides to go on one last field trip with his students. But the outing turns to tragedy when the sea rises up and Leo is thrown overboard. Despite everyone's best efforts, Leo is missing, presumed dead; lost at sea just like his son. The aftermath of the tragedy hits the community hard. But, amidst the grief, rumours that a man has been sighted living on an uninhabited island a few miles off shore begin to circulate. Could there be hope yet…?

TimesOnline.co.uk - Review date: April 18, 2010

Have you ever wanted to just leave everything and disappear?

When Leo, the marine-biologist hero of James MacManus's adventurous first novel, is swept overboard during an academic assignment, apparently never to be seen again, death could almost be counted among the least of his worries. Not only has he lately been fired from his post at a Cape Cod oceanic institution, after imprudently publicising his outré theories on seal communication, he has also fallen from grace with the sea, following the tragic loss of his son in a sailing accident, and drifted vast emotional distances from his careworn wife, Margot, whose anonymous sexual trysts and undisguised drinking are sure signs of a marriage that has been visibly dashed against the rocks.

Rumours of the protagonist's demise look to have been greatly exaggerated, though, especially when a keen-eyed birdwatcher's sighting of a hirsute human form frolicking in the coastal waters with seals comes to the attention of the press. While MacManus keenly transmits his passion for his mammalian subjects and the destruction being wrought on their world, he never turns his arguments into an environmental screed, but instead seamlessly combines these issues du jour with good old-fashioned storytelling. The same is true of the individualistic touches he gives to what might otherwise be stock characters.

It could, of course, be reasonably argued that the novel either sinks or swims on whether the reader is prepared to swallow some rum plot developments, which become increasingly unmoored from reality. Glimpsing the author's note at the end of the book, in which he recalls his boyhood fantasy of metamorphosing into a seal, you could be forgiven for thinking he has allowed a certain element of wish fulfilment to overtake his narrative's more resilient naturalistic qualities. Nevertheless, this is an engaging, cinematically imagined tale of the kind that Hollywood laps up.

Review by Trevor Lewis

DailyMail.co.uk - Review date: April 28, 2010

In James MacManus's On The Broken Shore, the campus novel meets Ring Of Bright Water (but with seals).

Marine academic Leo Kemp has everything: the respect of his colleagues, an international reputation and an enviable Cape Cod lifestyle. Then he destroys it all through an indiscreet newspaper interview. Why? Because, like the sea itself, there are troubled depths beneath the surface of Leo's perfect existence.

He resents the Institute he works for and suspects its politics. His Scottish wife - the fascinating alcoholic Margot - dislikes America.

And both of them are still reeling from the tragic death of their small son (in an accident Leo was present at) some years previously.

It's unsurprising Leo wants to escape and when he takes a student field-trip and disappears - presumed drowned - it seems he has. But what really happened? This is one of those rare things, a passionate book, written with feeling. Gripping drama plus well-drawn characters and a wonderfully absorbing and moving read.

Review by Wendy Holden

Scotsman.com

Leo Kemp is living an idyllic life teaching marine science on Cape Cod, next to the mysterious ocean that we do not yet fully understand.

Then his son drowns and his life falls apart. His marriage crumbles and he no longer fits in at work.

As his troubles multiply he falls overboard in a tempestuous sea on what is supposed to be his last field trip before he is fired. Kemp is missing, presumed dead – leaving his family and the community in shock.

Among the wreckage are friends, lovers and a bewildered daughter, seeking the truth. But why are there these rumours about a man being seen swimming with the seals in the ocean?

Has Kemp fulfilled his ambition to "shed the skin of humanity that clothed him" and become something else? Written with taut precision – MacManus is a journalist – the story unfolds on land and at sea and leads to a remarkable final episode.

8/10 Review by Jonathan Grun