Title: Here Beside the Rising Tide
Author: Emily Jane
Genre: Fantasy, fiction
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
As a lonely ten-year-old resident of Pearl Island, Jenni Farrow befriends Timmy Caruso and together they enjoy a glorious summer of swimming, fireworks, and carnival rides. (Not to mention rescuing a strange sea creature from a tidepool). Then, one late summer day, Timmy disappears.
Thirty years later, Jenni—now Jenn Lanaro, bestselling author of the Philipia Bay action-romance series—is desperate to escape the fatigue of her career and her soon-to-be-ex-husband. With her Pokémon-obsessed children in tow, Jenn rents a summer house on Pearl Island. But shortly after she arrives, a boy emerges from the nighttime sea. His name, he says, is Timmy Caruso. He’s ten years old. And he’s on a mission to save the world.
In the days that follow, Jenn grapples with work deadlines, her own spirited children, the mysterious boy-from-the-sea, and her burgeoning interest in a very sexy contractor. But when alarming events unfold along the coast—shark attacks, tidal waves, a proliferation of sugar-addicted sea creatures, and a terror out in the deeper water—she wonders if just maybe the young boy knows what he’s doing after all?
I’m not quite sure what to say about this. Jenni seems completely incapable of making any rational decisions, not even to save her life. She lets her kids run the show—even lets them blatantly manipulate her. She’s reactive to her almost-ex-husband. I don’t think I realized until just now how much she got on my nerves! The rest of the novel was somewhere between farce and bad B-rate movie. I didn’t get a sense of wonder or awe or anything but disbelief.
Emily Jane lives in Ohio. Here Beside the Rising Tide is her newest novel.
(Galley courtesy of Hyperion Avenue in exchange for an honest review.)
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