Author: Eve Yohalem

Eve Yohalem places young invented protagonists within carefully defined periods of travel and exchange. Cast Off begins in Amsterdam in 1663 with Petra de Winter fleeing an unwanted future and Bram Broen trying to restore his family's fortunes. Both secure passage on a Dutch merchant ship bound toward the East Indies, where work at sea repeatedly unsettles their expectations of one another. Dial Books published the novel during 2015. Yohalem connects private motives with the larger structures of maritime trade, hierarchy, and cultural encounter. Petra's disguise permits movement otherwise denied to her, but it complicates cooperation because discovery carries consequences. Bram's practical ambitions also change as the ship's community tests his assumptions about status. Cast Off joins the momentum of a seafaring story to a dual coming-of-age narrative, allowing two different forms of escape to develop into responsibility, resourcefulness, and a more complicated understanding of freedom.