“A lovely homage to Newfoundland culture, a story about storytellers told with a beguiling simplicity. Lovely and lyrical...Hooper’s work brims with mermaids and music and memory, as any good Newfoundland story must, and there is no shortage of eccentric characters.” (Toronto Star)

"True to its title, Our Homesick Songs is filled with music. The lyrical language is met with literal accordions, violins and songs passed through generations, sung by parents and children and even mermaids (a phenomenon in which they all believe). The town is filled with magic, and so is Hooper’s writing. Our Homesick Songs is a eulogy to not just a town but a lifestyle - one built on waves, and winds, and fish, and folklore." (The New York Times)

“[Emma Hooper] has recreated the demise of the fishery on the one hand, and explored the persistence of folk memory on the other.... [She] has constructed such an authentic sense of place from such a distant shore. In Hooper’s hands Newfoundland has become a kind of Narnia, or Never-Never Land, a place that we believe in.” (The Irish Times)

“Shifting from present to past, the story weaves together fables, songs, mystery, and mermaids. Brave and romantic, the Connors’ journey is uniquely nostalgic and magical, illuminated with childhood wonder, ingenuity, and love.” (The Christian Science Monitor)