Book of the Week June 25, 2026
A massive tsunami hits the Pacific Northwest and sweeps away Annie’s mother and father Maya and Aiden, and there’s not much left of Hale’s Landing, where she is sheltering with her grandmother Ruth. Then Annie discovers a man on the beach, about her age, with slimy, pale skin and strange eyes. As she and her aunt nurse Walker back to health, more questions than answers come up about him, making the townspeople suspicious. Moving back and forth in time from when Aiden first met Maya to the present to time in between, readers will find the lives of of Hale’s Landing inhabitants unfolding across the pages—Annie’s best friend and first love, Evan Hale, trapped by his father Isaac’s logging business; Uncle Henry, gruff and loving; and the chorus, locals who mistrusted Maya even before she and Aiden made the decision to live full-time on a sailboat. Annie can no longer deny that the sea calls her, as it did her mother, and Walker is somehow part of that—but how, and why? What is the connection she is missing? And can Hale’s Landing survive without the logging business that built it? Anderson spins an enchanting and exhilarating tale that will especially appeal to those who love everything about our waters and forests and all that dwell in and around them.—Dodie Ownes
