Acadian Shorelines

by Patrick d'Entremont

350 pages, Paperback

Published July 11, 2026

Reviews

[Rosie Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arcadian Shorelines is a coming-of-age tale set in a 1960s French speaking town in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

This is a story of friendship, life lessons, family, loss and love. Tommy and his friends grow up in a small fishing town—school, ice-hockey, listening to the music on the radio and embracing the language and fashions of the 1960s—fills their lives. The reader follows the group as they step from innocence and stumble through adolescence with its peaks and troughs until is spits them out, at the end of High School, into the big wide world.

This was a very readable tale, and I enjoyed many parts like the boat trips, Tommy’s motorbike adventures and the highs and lows of his friendship with Becky. The sprinkling of French throughout the dialogue kept the story grounded in its setting and I liked how Tommy and his friends accepted and respected much of their upbringing while gently pushing the boundaries.

A well-written story and one that I am happy to recommend.

[Lindsay Domenick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acadian Shorelines is a nostalgic coming-of-age story that reminded me a little of The Wonder Years. Set in a close-knit Acadian community in the 1960s, it follows Tommy and the group of friends he’s grown up alongside as they navigate their teenage years, family, and the changes that come with growing up.

Tommy navigates his catholic upbringing with a father who is strict throughout much of Tommy’s childhood, but as Tommy matures, their relationship softens. It was a touching reminder that our perspective on our parents often changes as we grow older and the things we often disliked as children are the things that make us who we are as adults.

The story has plenty of humor woven throughout, balanced with heartfelt moments. I really enjoyed the story!

I received an advance review copy of this book for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Cecily - MillennialBookGal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Patrick d'Entremont and BookSirens for the advanced copy of this novel.

My family on my grandmother's side have deep rooted history with the Acadian people. Her family still have that thick French accent which creates it own dialect within our family. The mixing of French and English in everyday speech and writing and a dialect uniquely there own. Not to mention, how I would fail any French homework that my grandmother attempted to help me on.

Reading this narrative reminded me a lot of the people around me in my upbringing and brought all the nostalgia. My mother even dated someone with the same last name as the author when I was a child. (I am going home for a visit in a few weeks and I can not wait!)

The story itself was a good coming of age story that rings a bit familiar to my own in certain aspects but overall warmed my heart. Or had me shaking my head. I am glad the author decided to write this story as I don't think many know of the history of the Acadia which is both tragic and interesting to learn the strength of those families.

Good read.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Acadian Shorelines, Patrick d’Entremont tells the uplifting, sometimes heartbreaking, but always entertaining tale of young Tommy Breau, who in the late 1960s is coming of age in a tiny French-speaking Nova Scotia fishing village called Glen River. Tommy narrates his own story, which begins shortly after the arrival to the neighbourhood of beautiful Rébecca Décarie, a 14-year-old army brat from Montréal, with whom Tommy quickly becomes infatuated. Rébecca and her friend Tina join Tommy’s crew, a casual assemblage of youths of similar age which includes Billy, Eugene and Owen (known as “Earwax” for reasons that are explained later in the novel). Billy (a month older than Tommy) seeing that his friend is smitten, takes it upon himself to give Tommy advice from his older and wiser perspective on how to woo the lovely Rébecca and make her his girlfriend. But Tommy, lacking Billy’s head-first, devil-may-care confidence, waits too long to make his move, and Rébecca is claimed by Larry Corporon, a local lout a couple of years older than Tommy. Tommy’s emotional attachment to Rébecca and their ongoing rapport as “friends” carries through the novel and is the source of great suspense with the “will they—won’t they?” question hovering over the narrative. In Tommy Breau, by all accounts an unexceptional teenage boy, Patrick d’Entremont has created a hugely appealing protagonist whose daily life of ordinary anxieties, tragedies and triumphs—major and minor—mirror those of readers. He worries about learning to drive. He’s concerned that a low grade in history and geography will spoil his chances of getting into college (and out of Glen River) but finds solace and inspiration in the study of literature. He loves sports, hockey in particular, and cheers for the Canadiens de Montréal, whom he watches faithfully on Hockey Night in Canada. He listens to broadcasts of baseball games coming from Boston. An aspect of life on Nova Scotia’s southwest shore that d’Entremont seamlessly incorporates into the story is the influence of American culture on the community. In this remote corner of the province, where the Atlantic Ocean flows into the Bay of Fundy, strong radio signals from the New England states can overwhelm Canadian signals. This influence is felt most deeply in the realm of pop music: d’Entremont sprinkles the text with numerous references to the groups and hits of the era (1967-1971). Like most teenagers growing up in a small town, where life is predictable to the point of tedium, Tommy and his gang dream of getting away. But with greater maturity comes reflection and self-awareness, and as the time of departure approaches, it’s then that they begin to appreciate what they’ll miss when they’re gone. And though he makes progress, leaving behind teenage hijinks and developing into a young man with ambition and a robust sense of responsibility, at the novel’s close Tommy still has plenty of questions about girls, Rébecca in particular, whom he finds fascinating, tantalizing, and eternally mysterious. Tommy’s story is the stuff of real life, crowded with characters whose fates matter, and Acadian Shorelines is an assured work of fiction by a writer who knows his subject matter intimately. The novel is wise, funny, surprising and compassionate. An absolute delight.