A Swirl of Ocean

June 24, 2019
Sarno (Just Under the Clouds) packs this deeply affecting novel with honest emotion. Propelled by authentic characters, the adroitly woven plot meshes past and present, dreams and reality, and love and friendship. Set in a seaside resort town where only the year-rounders remain as fall approaches, the story is narrated by 12-year-old Summer, whose adoptive mother, Lindy, found her alone at water’s edge a decade earlier, wearing a shell necklace. The ocean itself becomes a compelling character, at once calming and menacing, leaving shells on the beach that Summer vigilantly collects, yet abruptly catching her in a riptide. A keeper of long-held secrets, the sea also inspires Summer’s unsettlingly realistic dreams, told in installments and starring a girl called Tink (and always ending “with me inside the ocean. With the ocean inside me”), which she hopes hold a clue to her identity. Like the adolescents in her dreams, Summer grapples with disconcerting changes, including Lindy’s new live-in beau, who upsets the familial status quo. Though the exploration of Lindy’s provenance through dreams sometimes fails to land, the volume remains an involving, bracing summer tale for all seasons. Ages 8–12. Agent: Rebecca Stead, the Book Group.