The Story

In the small hours of October 14, 1942, a German U-boat sank the passenger ferry SS Caribou in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Of the 237 people on board, 136 perished, including 49 civilians. In Land Beyond the Sea, bestselling author Kevin Major reimagines the events of that fateful night from the perspectives of both those aboard the doomed vessel and the German U-boat commander who gave the order. With his characteristically sharp, evocative prose style, Major delivers an epic work of historical fiction, detailing a life-and-death conflict in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Land Beyond the Sea is a powerful and empathetic testament to the acts of destruction and the acts of heroism carried out in the name of home.

Reviews

“…a startlingly good feat of historical fiction.” The Miramichi Reader

“Land Beyond the Sea is historical fiction at its home-grown best… Kevin Major is doing for the Caribou tragedy what Cassie Brown did for the Newfoundland disaster [in Death on the Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914] — focusing on the individuals involved and, thereby, making the story believably personal for his readers.” The Packet

“Meticulously researched and seamlessly blended historical fact and Kevin Major’s fiction, Land Beyond the Sea was a great read.” Atlantic Book Reviews

Author’s Comments

This is the final book of my NewFoundLand trilogy of historical fiction. Here the main fictional character is John Gilbert, whose father and step-father are at the centre of Found Far and Wide. But this third book is very much shaped by actual people, some of the individuals who were aboard the ill-fated Caribou, as well as U-69, the German u-boat responsible for her sinking. I set out to learn all I could about them, yet what my research revealed was not enough to make fully formed characters. I steeped Land Beyond the Sea in my imagination, a well-informed imagination. I merged fact and fiction, and in doing so aimed for the stronger truth that can emerge when the two join forces.