The Boat Runner cover art

The Boat Runner

A Novel

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The Boat Runner

By: Devin Murphy
Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
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About this listen

In the tradition of All the Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale comes an incandescent debut novel about a young Dutch man who comes of age during the perilousness of World War II.

Beginning in the summer of 1939, 14-year-old Jacob Koopman and his older brother, Edwin, enjoy lives of prosperity and quiet contentment. Many of the residents in their small Dutch town have some connection to the Koopman lightbulb factory, and the locals hold the family in high esteem.

On days when they aren't playing with friends, Jacob and Edwin help their uncle Martin on his fishing boat in the North Sea, where German ships have become a common sight. But conflict still seems unthinkable, even as the boys' father naively sends his sons to a Hitler Youth Camp in an effort to secure German business for the factory.

When war breaks out, Jacob's world is thrown into chaos. The Boat Runner follows Jacob over the course of four years, through the forests of France, on the stormy beaches of England, and deep within the secret missions of the German navy, where he is confronted with the moral dilemma that will change his life - and his life's mission - forever.

Epic in scope and featuring a thrilling narrative with precise, elegant language, The Boat Runner tells the little-known story of the young Dutch boys who were thrown into the Nazi campaign as well as the brave boatmen who risked everything to give Jewish refugees safe passage to land abroad. Through one boy's harrowing tale of personal redemption, here is a novel about the power of people's stories and voices to shine light through our darkest days, until only love prevails.

©2017 Devin Murphy (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Coming of Age Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Transportation War

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Great Narrator

It was a very compelling story, an outright page turner (had I been reading) it was like a TV series that I can't stop watching, I could not stop listening, wanting to know what was next.

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Nicely read and a well paced story

Loved the pace of the story and how it portrayed not only the main characters experiences but also the emotional and sensual response to those experiences. It sort of ebbed and flowed quite like life and trauma tend to do instead of using gripping hooks or crescendos. I think story telling in this way does the setting and subject justice.

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