Praise for The Undiscovered Island

Exerpt from Easy Reader review ... "Indeed, I want to be on record as being among the first to recognize this book as a seminal work in 21st Century literature. It is certain to inspire a host of doctoral dissertations. And will be returned to periodically and earnestly by literary critics, as well as language scholars."

~ JB Kennedy, Read entire review online at Easy Reader: The South Bay's Hometown News

“ A story of mystery and magic—magical appearances and mysterious disappearances, mysterious women and magical islands—beautifully and lyrically told.”

~ Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

“ After Ulysses founded Lisbon as legend has it, he sailed off into forbidden waters and landed on the isle that held the fountain of Purgatory as Dante had it. Might this have been the Azores? The Undiscovered Island could confirm the fact, as all of Portuguese history, so legendary as it is, comes to a kind of culmination on these isles. Time is of no avail as its end and passage convene in this novel in what is a romp of detective story, epic, and family quest. What a great read!”

~ Gregory Rabassa, translator of One Hundred Years of Solitude

"The Azores is an archipelago hundreds of miles west of the coast of Portugal, located in the mid-Atlantic. It is a relatively unknown (or unexploited) area that is not often discussed in the media-or in literature. This will change, however, if Darrell Kastin and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture has any say. Kastin, who descends from Azores natives, has used his knowledge of the islands, their culture and their history to weave, in The Undiscovered Island, a skillful tapestry of myth, history and personal revelation that is nothing short of fascinating.

"The story focuses on Julia Castro, who travels to the Azores from her home in California to seek out her father, who has mysteriously gone missing. Through her search for him, Julia encounters legends and superstitions that pervade the islands, colorful locals, local history and historical fantasy, and the magic of her roots and of herself. What Kastin has done with The Undiscovered Island is bring all of the color and quirk of this beautiful and under-appreciated area to the world’s attention-and we should thank him for that."

~ Ashley Mcall, Sacramento Book Review