Reeling : A Novel
RayAnneās next adventure takes our intrepid heroine, haunted by her beloved grandmotherās death, to New Zealand to film a new season of her all-women fishing talk show
What stage of grief is it when your grandmotherās ghost keeps popping up on your electronic devices? Denial? For RayAnne that seems to be the stage for launching the second season of Fishing!āin New Zealand. Ready or not, she is taking public televisionās first all-women fishing talk show on the road, putting the cold Minnesota winter in the rearview mirrorāwhich, it turns out, Gran is haunting, too.
After a challenging first season, and RayAnneās serendipitous ascension to host, thereās a lot at stake. With camera-wielding twins Rongo and Rangi along as crew and tour guides, RayAnne and her indefatigable producer Cassi set out across New Zealand in search of noteworthy women who fish: a skipjack boat captain navigating sexist harbors; a writer of historical suffragette fiction, which is, apparently, a thing; a reclusive MÄori octogenarian who ties fishing flies for dignitaries. Their stories, and a good dose of the countryās history, are almost enough to take the edge off RayAnneās homesickness and grief, to say nothing of jetlagāand it doesnāt hurt to discover a bird dog who fishes, an anti-fashionista, a pair of sisters fishing their way through recovery, and . . . a Hobbit? Meanwhile, the romantic and family entanglements she left behind at home havenāt exactly come untangled in her absence.
Those who met RayAnne in Fishing!, Sarah Stonichās first outing with the intrepid, accidental talk-show host, will encounter familiar and unexpected pleasures in her latest anticsāand a story whose lighthearted surface and surprising depths will charm readers who now find her for the first time.