The Silver Boat

The Silver Boat

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3.5 of 5 stars 3.50  ·  rating details  ·  1,216 ratings  ·  197 reviews
Bestseller Luanne Rice returns with a novel as timeless as the sea on which it's set.

From the beloved New York Times bestselling Luanne Rice comes a heartwarming yet heart-wrenching portrait of three far-flung sisters who come home to Martha's Vineyard one last time. Their mother's beach house is the only place any of them ever found true happiness and they need to begin...more
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published April 5th 2011 by Pamela Dorman Books (first published April 2nd 2005)
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Rebecca
When Dar McCarthy's mother dies, she leaves her three daughters fifteen acres of Martha's Vineyard that have been in the family for over 400 years, and too many debts to keep either the house or the land. Rory and Delia, who live off-island and have their own families and troubles, come to help Dar pack up. Reminiscing, they think again about their Irish boatbuilder father, who claimed that his family was granted property on the Vineyard 400 years ago by the King. He spent his whole marriage sea...more
Denise Cuenin
I love this author but I am not sure this book is one of her best efforts. The story is interesting and she revisits her theme of sisters and single parent families headed by loving mothers but a few things bothered me. The emotional damage caused by the father's abrupt disappearance seems a bit unfinished. If they were so deeply hurt that all of them are unable to really become happy adults, why were they so passive? Why didn't anyone travel to Ireland and try to trace the father for 35 years?...more
Regina Spiker
Dar McCarthy, the only sister still living on Martha's Vineyard, has gathered her two younger sisters home, Delia and Rory, to close up Daggett's Way, the old beloved family beach house. Desperately trying to hang onto the 15 acre property, all three sisters fly off to Cork, Ireland, remembering their father's insistent story of a land grant given to the McCarthys. Their father had sailed for the emerald isles, many years before on a lovely ship he had built himself, the Irish Darling, promising...more
readinrobin
This is the first book by Luanne Rice that I’ve read, though I see her name all the time, and have three of her other books in my To Be Read pile. So I was looking forward to finally experiencing her writing. Unfortunately, I was not overly impressed. I had trouble getting into the story, and found it sort of dragged and at times my attention tried to wander. With some authors, the writing just flows across the page, but that’s not the sense I got here, and I had to make myself concentrate on th...more
Jeanne
I have read several of Luanne Rice's books and this was not one of the best. I liked the setting of the story and the characters. The relationships between the characters weren't particularly well developed. Dar McCarthy, a recovering alcoholic, artist and graphic novelest is the central character, surrounded by her two sisters, lover and childhood friend. Dar's father abandoned the family nearly 30 years earlier to go to Ireland to look for a land grant that gave him property on Martha's Vinyar...more
Machel
On the day I received this book, I must say it felt like Christmas. I just loved this novel. I cried at least three times, while reading it, and really related to this story of the three sisters. I felt a kinship with the main character Dar, and her personal struggle to make peace with unanswered stories from her past, her quest to keep her family beach house and her ability to separate her 'self' through her writings (Dar is a fantasy writer in the novel). What's always wonderful about a "Luann...more
Annette
i liked this book. :)
when i first started it, it seemed to have a lot in common with my last read "the lake of dreams". the books both include family drama & angst, mysterious family secrets & history to be solved, east coast "sea side" settings, and a little romance sprinkled in for good measure.

by the time i finished the book, i felt it was a book with a "moral to the story". a book about how time moves on & things change & how we have no choice really but to change with the ti...more
Victoria
2 1/2 stars, but I'll be generous since it won it as a "First Read," so I'll give it 3 instead of 2.

First, some thoughts....Sometimes I wonder if an established, popular author were to submit a book for publication under a different name, posing as a first time author, would they get published? If they did, how much would their editor or publisher press them for rewrites and edits? But established authors don't do this. Why would they? They would be setting themselves up for rejection and scrut...more
Valerie
When I selected this at the library, I was wondering how this audiobook could be only 7 hours in its entirety (and yes, that is unabridged). Turns out the reason is that the story is ridiculously underdeveloped. I'm not sure a single plot line was wrapped up by the end, or maybe there just wasn't a whole lot to the plot to begin with. Either way, it felt like a book at the beginning of its writing life cycle rather than one that was already published. There were aspects of the story that held my...more
Jody
This is the story of three sisters returning to their mother's home to close it up after her death. They are unable to keep it because of back taxes that are owed. The beach home is on Martha's Vineyard. Many memories are rehashed, as their dad left when the oldest sister was only 12 years to go back to Ireland. He was searching for proof that the King of England had granted his ancestors the land. He left his family and never returned. I did not understand why the family now (30 years later) ha...more
Linda
Any family story about New England, especially including the ocean, usually grabs me right away, and that is why I grabbed this book off the shelf at the library. Three sisters meet in Martha's Vineyard to close up the family home after the death of their mother. Their father had sailed solo to Ireland some 30 years before to hunt for proof that their property was an ancient land grant. He never returned and the family never knew whether he was dead or alive. Dar, the sister who still lived on...more
Judith
The Silver Boat: A Novel by Luanne Rice follows the last generation of an old Martha’s Vineyard family after their mother’s long illness and death leaves them without the means to support the family’s fifteen acre property on the Atlantic Ocean in Chilmark, Massachusetts. The three sisters grew up there, summered there in picturesque Daggett’s Way, brought their children there every year, as their family had for nearly four centuries. Only Dar had stayed a Vineyard year-rounder, living in a tiny...more
Ikdavid
An easy to read novel about the descendents of an Irish-american family that had to decide whether or not to sell the family summer home, due to financial reasons. Some of the plot revolves around a father who went missing from his family many decades before, and the impact that has on the daughters' current lives. The father was a boat builder and had built a boat to sail to Ireland to research an ancestral claim on the island property. If reading on the surface, this was a fine, easy read, wit...more
Tami
Haven't received yet, just received notice I had won! 3/23/11
Just received my copy, hope to start soon. 3/31/11

I finished last night. What a story. Three sisters, meet at their family home on Marthas Vineyard to pack the house because it has been sold. The sisters are so different, and yes, I wanted to slap some sense into one of them. They each struggle with their memories of the house, their mother, their father. The father had left when they were young children in search of proof to his inher...more
Lynn Pribus
This might be a bit better than a two-star, but two stars are "It was OK."

And this was. Suffered, I'm sure, by being read right after STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG which was written with such verve and was filled with literary and contemporary puns and references.

Story of three sisters, mother recently dead, overseeing the selling -- or keeping -- of the family farmhouse on Martha's Vineyard. Includes a search for a vanished father in Ireland. These women must have been pretty wealthy to be flying...more
LeAnn
Luanne Rice's characters are again believable and interesting. Family ties and their "unraveling" and "strengthening" keep the reader engaged. The three sisters, Dar, Delia, and Rory, were fortunate to have memorable summers at Daggett's Way (the big house) and the Hideaway (Dar's small beach cottage located on the west end of the 15 acre property) by the Atlantic Ocean in Chilmark, Massachusetts. It's definitely a great "summer read". If you like books with Irish heritage/"connections" and wish...more
Judy
Jan 04, 2012 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of chicklit
The Silver Boat: A Novel falls into the category of typical chick-lit. However, it was a nice reprieve from some longer reads I've engaged in recently.

The story centers around the McCarthy sisters whose father disappeared upon reaching Ireland after a solo sail across the Atlantic Ocean in his hand-crafted sailboat. The disappearance and death of their strong mother ultimately leads to each girl facing issues in their own lives. Each sister has to decide who and what is most important to her.

A...more
Elvia
This book is so amazing. I love the way it was written. It was mystical and deep. I truly didn't think I was going to enjoy this book as much as I did.

It is the journey of three very different sisters as they try to deal with their father's evident abandonment and the seemingly unrelated selling of their family home in Martha's Vineyard. The story centers mainly around Dar, an artist who uses her talent to escape her talents and express her feelings. The story leads to a trip to Ireland and eve...more
Stephanie
Nice beach read from Rice...Ive read alot of her stories focusing on Irish families on the Connecticut coast and this one was even more intriging and heartfelt than her previous books because it took place on Martha's Vinyard and involved middle aged sisters with dark pasts and complicated present lives ...This setting is close to where I used to live on Cape Cod so her vivid words brought me back to an earlier time and place.....Luanne's stories are complicated and believable yet make you feel...more
K.P. Vorenberg
If only the first 64 pages of this book went as swiftly as the rest of it did, I would have given it a higher rating. This was one of those rare times I nearly put a book aside after reading three or four chapters, but I was interested in the career that had been given to the character of the oldest sister and continued the read.

This is my first time reading a book by this author. I did enjoy the visualization of the graphic artist's fantasy story throughout. The setting was of particular intere...more
Lynda
I thought this book got better as it went along. Three sisters, Delia, Dar and Rory have to sort out their family home before it is sold to pay estate taxes. None of the three sisters has gotten over their father's leaving when they were young but it affected Dar the most. She has created a series of very successful graphic novels about a water spirit named Dulse to deal with her feelings. The sisters decide to travel to Ireland to uncover whatever they can about their father's last journey in h...more
Joy
This is my first book to read by this author, but I read it all in one day and enjoyed it. Three sisters meet at their childhood vacation home on Martha's Vineyard to pack up the house before it is sold. They are really saying good-bye to a major part of their lives. I loved their relationship with each other. As with anything, one sister cared more about the house and life, but the other sisters were sensitive to her special sadness at leaving. The story involved a trip the sisters made to Irel...more
Anita Johnson
Dar McCarthy and her two sisters, Rory and Delia, are packing up their family home in Martha's Vinyard that has to be sold now that their mother has died. This was the center of all their happy memories of summers spent by the ocean. Their Irish father, a boat builder, crafted a gleaming white sailboat that he sailed solo to Ireland on to claim something that was owed him. They never saw him after that. This is a beautiful story of family ties that sometimes strangle but in the end hold everythi...more
Charmaine
This is an ok story - nothing earth-shattering about it. The plot and characters kept my interest so that I at least wanted to know how it would end. However, once again, I am turned off by the author's seemingly perfunctory inclusion of a couple of overly detailed sex scenes and the need to drop the "eff" bomb several times in the dialog. This novel (like many others) was not enhanced in any way by these additions. If they had been eliminated no one would have noticed. They had absolutely nothi...more
Cindy Gargano
Three and 1/2 stars so I'll round up to four. Not my favorite Luanne Rice book but still entertaining. It was a light read but held my interest. I finished reading it in about a day while trying to get over a cold. I was quickly drawn into the characters' lives and felt like I had known about them long before their story began. Coming from the south shore of Massachusetts, I enjoyed the Martha's Vineyard setting. I connected with Dar and related to many of her feelings throughout the book. I wou...more
Mj
Jan 14, 2013 Mj rated it 4 of 5 stars
Shelves: fiction
I wrote this review shortly after reading the Silver Boat in 2011 but just realized it never got posted. Thought I would share my review now.

The Silver Boat is a good read about sibling relationships – each very different people, presented with different life problems, who have gone their different ways but are still connected with a strong bond of love. Their memories of their absentee father who was a dreamer and adventurer are mixed – almost as if they had different fathers, but really more b...more
LuAnn
I really enjoy this new style I’m finding in books that deals with relationships and The Silver Boat is right up there on the top of the list. This is the story of three sisters who are each, in their own way, dealing with the death of their mother. They have come together to clear out their mother’s house, a place they tended to gather at certain times each year as a family. After all, they grew up in the house and lived there when their father left to sail solo across the Atlantic to find his...more
kim
I was really looking forward to this book. I have read several others by Luanne Rice and enjoyed them very much. And the cover is so pretty! But I have to say, this book was a disappointment. The good news is that is is a quick, easy read. I finished in 2 days. The bad news is that it is a very forgettable story.

In many ways, it is a slow moving story with not a whole lot going on. And in other ways, there is far too much happening, with too many characters and too much going on. The result is...more
Donna
It’s the time of the year to begin stockpiling beach reads, and “The Silver Boat” by Luanne Rice, set amid sand and sea, fits right in.
After the death of their mother, sisters Dar, Delia and Rory reunite at the family home on Martha’s Vineyard before selling the beachfront property.
When they were children, their father, an Irishman who had claimed that some of that property had been given by the English king to one of his ancestors, sailed away to find proof, never to return.
When the sisters fin...more
Ellen
Thank you for the priviledge of allowing me the opportunity to read The Silver Boat before it was released for sale. This is an amazing book, all of your senses are in play. Three sisters on a journey to resolve issues from their past & plan for their future.
I felt most drawn to Dar and her relationship to her father. This book takes place in Martha's
Vineyard and in Ireland.This book is a 5 star and a must read for anyone who likes books/stories about
family and especially sisters.
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Luanne Rice is the author of thirty-one novels including the forthcoming THE LEMON ORCHARD (Viking/Pamela Dorman Books.) Five of her books have been made into movies and mini-series, twenty-two have been consecutive New York Times bestsellers and two of her pieces have been featured in off-Broadway theatre productions. Born and raised in Connecticut, she divides her time between New York City and...more
More about Luanne Rice...
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