Carol Newman Cronin, whose Olympic sailing team won two races at the 2004 Games in Athens, sees far more than sport in the sea.  As a writer and editor, she brings to life the magic she finds in the nautical world and coastal communities.

Now, in her fourth novel, Ferry To Cooperation Island, Cronin once again immerses readers in salt-sprayed air, a healthy dose of intrigue and a sense of connectedness to the earth and to community.

Ferry To Cooperation Island takes readers to the fictional Brenton Island, a few miles off New England’s Narragansett Bay.  A haven for birdwatchers and beachcombers, there is little to disrupt the thirty-six locals’ tranquil routine—until ferry captain James Malloy is unceremoniously fired and replaced by newcomer Courtney Farris.  The ferry is the island’s lifeline to the glitzy docks of nearby Newport, Rhode Island. It also lies at the heart of a bitter rivalry pitting gentrification and development against open space and preservation.

When James discovers plans to build a private golf course across wilderness sacred to his dying best friend, a Narragansett Indian named Joe Borba, he becomes determined to stop such “improvements.”   Although Brenton’s nickname is “Cooperation Island” in honor of a peace and friendship treaty signed between the Narragansetts and the island’s white settlers, James is used to working solo. But to win this battle, he’ll have to learn to work with other islanders.  And that includes Captain Courtney, who might just morph from irritating to irresistible once James learns a secret that’s been kept from him for years.

Ferry to Cooperation Island pulls readers in closely as its characters navigate stormy relationships, family rivalries, greed and mistrust before ultimately discovering the power of unity.  Rich with detail from the nautical world but quite accessible to readers new to boats, Ferry to Cooperation Island celebrates wilderness and the sea, open space and open-mindedness, and the redemptive power of neighborly cooperation.

Praise for Ferry to Cooperation Island

“Wash ashore on this island and find a community of characters whose lives are as interwoven, interdependent, and thus as complicated as its long history. Babies are born, beloved friends take their leave, and lovers change partners, as each arrival and departure of the ferry brings new twists. Cronin has built a world that you won’t want to sail away from!”

—Juliette Fay, best-selling author of five novels including The Tumbling Turner Sisters 

“Olympic racing sailor Carol Newman Cronin takes us on a voyage of discovery built around the human interaction with an island at the entrance of Narragansett Bay off the coast of Rhode Island. Every sentence draws the reader into the curious lives of each character with a descriptive style that puts you in the middle of the narrative. Carol has a gift for story-telling that makes you just keep turning every page to learn what is going to happen next. A word of caution— once you start reading you won’t stop until the book ends.”

—Gary Jobson, President of the National Sailing Hall of Fame

“Lifetime sailor Carol Newman Cronin combines well-drawn characters, their family legacies, and the history of the island itself in a vivid story about the struggle of preservation versus development, grace against greed. Anyone who visits a New England island should have a copy of this in hand for summer reading. Wherever you look— the ferry landing, the coffee shop, the general store—you’ll recognize the characters.”

—Doug Logan, author of BoatSense 

“Ferry to Cooperation Island is an entertaining portrait of island life where a quirky population of year-round inhabitants and their green ferry captain must navigate much more than a passage to the mainland. Readers will root for love between arch-rivals while a distinctive cast of salty, New-Englanders cling to their beloved island’s natural beauty. This novel takes on an age-old balancing act, pitting traditionalists against developers espousing ‘economic progress.’ Written with fast-paced, vernacular wit, Ferry to Cooperation Island is the perfect antidote for a land-locked point-of-view.”

—Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, author of Eden and The Nine