Under the Gulf Coast Sun

UNDER THE GULF COAST SUN

By SKIP RHUDY

Romance / Coming of Age / Surfing

Publisher: Stoney Creek Publishing

Pages: 266

Publication Date: April 22, 2025

SYNOPSIS

This coming-of-age tale set against the sun-soaked beaches of 1970s Port Aransas, Texas, is a love letter to the people and culture of the Texas coast and the enduring allure of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Eighteen-year-old Connor O’Reilly isn’t ready to leave his beloved hometown until the tourist girl he met the previous summer, Kassie Hernandez, returns to Port Aransas for one final vacation before college. Their tumultuous summer fling is wrecked by a freak accident in which Connor is lost at sea. His long years of surfing and fishing in the Gulf, as well as Kassie’s desperation to reunite with him, are pitted against the enormity and utter indifference of the sea. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Skip Rhudy grew up surfing in Port Aransas, Texas. He has translated poetry and prose from German to English, and translated Wolfgang Hilbig’s novella Die Weiber for his master’s thesis in 1990 at the University of Texas. His short stories were published in numerous small press magazines in the mid-1990s, and his novella One Punk Summer was published in 1993 and reprinted in 2021.

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REVIEW

I found that reading Under the Gulf Coast Sun by Skip Rhudy to be so entertaining with it’s setting of Port Aransas in the 1970s. All in all, this is truly a coming-of-age love story between a hard-working young woman with big dreams and a surfer with a passion for the ocean and its inhabitants. I found this story to be so charming and lovely with it’s underlying message…or rather feeling? of the challenge of balancing ones wants and emotions and one’s ambition and logic.

One could easily see this story as a beach read romance, and honestly, you won’t be disappointed because it gives that nostalgic feeling of what was and the possibility of what could be. Aside from that, however, is that real intimate feeling of how bittersweet it is to grow up and the idea of knowing what you want.

Definitely read on the beach if you can, but honestly? Read it regardless of where you are - it’s a story worth reading.