AUTHOR: Amanda Dykes
DATE: 2019
PUBLISHER: Bethany House
STARS: *****
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.
Whose Waves These Are wraps itself around you with lyrical prose and deep emotions. Family ties and secrets keep the plot steadily moving back and forth through time at a steady pace, as these mysteries require a slower pace for their resolution.
The faith message in this story is quiet but true, as are the romances. The theme running through Whose Waves These Are is the necessity of hope, the hope of better things, the hope of love gained. Forgiveness and grace weave these disparate characters together, sometimes in spite of themselves.
Through secrets unveiled and sorrows endured, I appreciated this story, smiling at times, wiping tears at others. Whose Waves These Are earns five stars.
I received a copy of this book courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications and Baker Publishing Group.