Whose Waves These Are (Whose Waves These Are #1)

 

Title: Whose Waves These Are

 

Author: Amanda Dykes

Genre: Time-slip/Dual Timeline

Publishing Date: April 30, 2019

Length: 368 pages

About the Book:

In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rallying cry for hope, purpose . . . and rocks. Send me a rock for the person you lost, and I will build something life-giving. When the poem spreads farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss’s humble words change the tide of a nation. Boxes of rocks inundate the tiny, coastal Maine town, and he sets his calloused hands to work, but the building halts when tragedy strikes.

Decades later, Annie Bliss is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Sea when she learns her Great-Uncle Robert, the man who became her refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is now the one in need of help. What she didn’t anticipate was finding a wall of heavy boxes hiding in his home. Long-ago memories of stone ruins on a nearby island trigger her curiosity, igniting a fire in her anthropologist soul to uncover answers.

She joins forces with the handsome and mysterious harbor postman, and all her hopes of mending the decades-old chasm in her family seem to point back to the ruins. But with Robert failing fast, her search for answers battles against time, a foe as relentless as the ever-crashing waves upon the sea.

My Review:

There are books to be read and books to be experienced. Whose Waves These Are is truly an experience not to be missed. I’ve had quite a high TBR pile and so I set the rule that I couldn’t add any books to my list until I dwindled down what I had, but after seeing so many rave reviews for this one I couldn’t help but  break my rule and get my hands on a copy.

When I first started reading I’ll admit that I wondered what about this book created so much hype. I was quickly drawn in and didn’t want to put it down, but I was still wondering what the “wow” factor was going to be. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it’s there! Tissues will certainly come in handy. I did quite a bit of ugly crying through the last 2/3 of the book or so. I was sucked so deeply into the world of Bob and his family that it felt like it had become my own. My heart was taken on a rollercoaster ride with a splash at the end. To say I was left in a book fog would be quite the understatement!

What truly sucked me into this novel was that it was about people with broken hearts trying to relearn how to navigate the world around them in the midst of their pain. No one is exempt from heartache in their lives, but some certainly seem to be handed bigger doses than others. Everyone handles the pain they face differently, and sometimes that leads to healing while other times it ends up leading to more brokenness. How this played out in the lives of the characters was truly a remarkable journey.

I can be an emotional reader but I was surprised how deeply this story sucked me in. For much of the ending I was either crying or on the verge of tears. There was no way this book was being put down until I had reached the ending. I now understand what everyone was talking about, and I can now officially join them in saying that this book is a must-read you won’t want to miss!

*I received a copy of this book through NetGalley. Thoughts and opinions expressed are mine alone.

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