“Sea Trial is a riveting account of two intertwined voyages of adventure and introspection. Brian Harvey writes with wit, intelligence, dry modesty and high style as he tells the stories of a hazardous and difficult sea passage and an exploration of his father’s long-ago malpractice trial. A fascinating and wholly engaging book.” — Derek Lundy, author of the bestselling Godforsaken Sea
“Sea Trial is gripping from the very first page. You need to be a good navigator to circumnavigate Vancouver Island, with a ragged western coastline known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. You also need to be a skilled writer to navigate the shoals, cross-currents, and uncertain weathers of such an ambitious floating memoir. Brian Harvey is both.” — Gary Geddes, author of the bestselling Sailing Home and Medicine Unbundled
“Harvey has serious skills, and his riveting story is impossible to put down.” — Cruising World
“Brian Harvey’s Sea Trial defies easy description. In fact, that is exactly one of its — considerable — strengths … With a sharp eye for telling detail, and inventive language, Harvey is a writer who knows how to fix on the less to evoke the more.” — The Ormsby Review
“Harvey’s fascinating exploration of his father’s pain goes well beyond talented description. With sensitivity, he probes his father’s emotions and inadvertently his own as he unravels and explains a tragic backstory … The trials Harvey encounters — personal, meteorological, and indeed adjudicative — are arresting.” — Literary Review of Canada
“Irresistible … Semi-psychological and cathartic at the same time, Sea Trial was a highly enjoyable read … If you are a sailing enthusiast (armchair or otherwise) then Sea Trial deserves a place on your shelf alongside Joshua Slocum, Henry Dana Jr. and others who so masterfully brought the world of sail to life in printed form.” — Miramichi Reader
“Sea Trial is a fine book. It’s a cathartic story told with well-placed sailing metaphors.” — Book Island blog