Chatham Author’s Memoir Recalls Life As A Fisherman’s Daughter; Another Kemprecos ‘Soc’ Mystery Rereleased

After over half a century, a childhood on Cape Cod in the 1960s and 1970s can seem remote and exotic.

 E.A. Meigs of Chatham, author of the eight-book series “Dreamer Books: An Ice Age Saga,” grew up on the Cape’s rural bayside. About two years ago she turned her attention from the Ice Age to a more contemporary period — the decades following her early 1960s birth. Her charming new memoir is “Chronicles of a Fisherman’s Daughter” (Dreamer Literary Productions, 2026). 

In “Chronicles,” she describes a time long before big tech and social media. The down-to-earth milieu in which she grew up is no doubt one unfamiliar to the Cape’s many summer visitors. And yes, as the title says, her father was a commercial fisherman, a sea scalloper.

 “I hope to leave readers feeling amused,” Meigs said in a recent email interview. “And if they have a better understanding as to what living on Cape Cod means to those of us who have deep roots here, that’s fine, too. But mostly, I just want to entertain readers.”

 Starting as a child, Meigs kept a journal. Now she has turned away from scribbling in diaries and spiral notebooks to published writing. Her many short tales — which run through the current day — relate wry and often humorous experiences, making this the kind of book you happily curl up with for a cozy read.

She recalls her father shooting a pheasant through the bathroom window, immediately changing that evening’s dinner menu. “That kind of spontaneous, hands-on approach to food feels almost alien today,” she writes.

 She recalls raising goat kids alongside her own daughters in her cozy kitchen after the kids’ premature births during a springtime blizzard. Running through the memoir is a motley group of pets, including a 141-pound St. Bernard named Ralph.

 In 1978 Meigs graduated from a local technical high school with a certificate in marine repair. To graduate, she had to be able to “design, loft and build a wooden boat from scratch, including milling the raw lumber,” she writes. She mastered welding and boat repairs. “So far as I know, I was the only woman ever to complete the course.”

 As a young adult, Meigs was employed in various aspects of the marine and commercial fishing industries, and she offers unique insights as to what working as a woman in those tough, masculine and sometimes dangerous worlds meant. No matter what hassles a given day might bring, she focused on her goal: “I had a household to support.” Since she was divorced, her two daughters at home relied on her. Her attitude illustrates another of the book’s underlying themes: the grit and determination of native Cape Codders, engaged in a sometimes-precarious living off the sea. 

Despite the light tone of many of Meigs’ stories, a serious undercurrent runs through them. “There’s an old saying: ‘When you buy fish, you buy men’s lives,’” she writes. Fishing “comes with inherent risks. Some leave shore, never to touch land again.”

 The opening piece relates a scalloping trip Meigs took with her father on a cold, snowy day. Meigs was 12 or 13 and decided to warm them both up with hot chocolate. “I still wax nostalgic on occasion for the smell of the ocean and freedom of riding the waves,” she writes. And “some part of me will always be a fisherman’s daughter: the kid who drew pictures of fishing boats in art class.”

 “Chronicles of a Fisherman’s Daughter” is available through online booksellers. Meigs has also developed a line of merchandise including T-shirts and caps available through dreamerliteraryproductions.com.

 Paul Kemprecos of Dennis Port, the bestselling author of the Aristotle “Soc” Socarides mysteries series, has just rereleased the third in the series, “Death in Deep Water” (Thalassa, 2026). 

 In this mystery Soc, a private investigator, commercial diver and fisherman operating out of Cape Cod, is hired by the corporate owners of a marine theme park to prove that their star attraction — a 10-ton killer whale named Rocky — did not murder his trainer Eddy Byron.

 Soc goes undercover to work at the aquatic park. Meanwhile, a radical animal rights group is picketing the park. A multi-million dollar deal to sell the park to a Japanese conglomerate is at risk. And is the stress of performing for the crowds making the dolphins and orcas aggressive — even turning them into killers?

 A second person connected with the park soon turns up dead. Soc learns a painful lesson. “When it comes to apex predators, a nosy private detective is at the bottom of the food chain.”

 Kemprecos says he recently got the rights to publish the Soc series back from his publisher, saving the series from “book oblivion.” He previously republished the first two books in the series: “Cool Blue Tomb” and “Neptune’s Eye.” Additional titles are forthcoming.

 The reprinted books have new covers and “expanded author notes about how it came to be,” Kemprecos says. And as in all of Kemprecos’ tales, the Cape provides the perfect setting for a mystery.

 Kemprecos’ books are available at local bookshops and online.