The Wild Beneath
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • Indie Next Pick
“Ethereal...a story that reminds us sometimes the impossible is possible.”—JODI PICOULT
“A haunting, heart-stopping debut.”—CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE
"Part love story, part ode to nature, with a mystical, musical, mysterious quality."—NIKKI ERLICK
For readers of Wild Dark Shore and The Time Traveler’s Wife, a fierce, haunting story of one woman caught between her first love and a mysterious stranger who upends everything—and the two worlds that won’t let her go.
Annie MacLeod always knew she was different, growing up on a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest, navigating by stars and swimming with sea creatures alongside her parents and best friend Evan. But when a tsunami shatters her world, Annie is stranded on land and forced to confront how eccentric she is. In the wreckage, she rescues a wordless man named Walker, who emits a hum only she can hear.
Their connection is instant, electric. Walker’s touch gives Annie visions of the ocean’s hidden world, a life she’s never known but feels inexplicably drawn to. Yet even as she is pulled toward him, Evan—the steadfast love who has always been there—remains on dry land, offering the stability she may have to leave behind. Annie is torn between Evan’s grounding presence and Walker’s magnetic secrets. But then, Walker vanishes, along with the answers she needs about who she really is.
Six years later, Annie has left the sea and buried the past—until Walker’s otherworldly sound returns, pulling her back toward the ocean and the life she abandoned. The truth under the water is more ancient than she ever could have known, and Annie must confront a choice that will test her heart and determine her future.
"Absolutely dazzling."—SARAH PENNER
"Incandescent...I did not want to come up for air."—EMMA KNIGHT
"Spellbinding!"—NITA PROSE
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The past is a vast ocean of bittersweet secrets and forgotten truths in this deeply emotional story. Raised mostly on a sailboat, Annie was always tuned to the rhythms of the ocean, only taking to the shore to spend summers on Vancouver Island with her grandmother Ruth and lifelong friend Evan. But that was before a devastating tsunami swept through the Pacific Northwest. With her parents lost at sea and their community decimated, she meets a mysterious young man named Walker when he washes up naked on the beach. The strange connection Annie has to Walker feels perfectly in line with the highly atmospheric vibe of Kelly Anderson’s lyrical, evocative writing. As the story unfolds, you can sense how Evan’s steady presence grounds Annie on land, while Walker’s mystical strangeness pulls her toward the ocean, where buried truths about her past seem to be rising to the surface. This is a gorgeously complex story of love, grief, and discovering who you are.
