Whose Waves These Are
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2020 Christy Award Book of the Year
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Family members reconnect over an incomplete WWII memorial in Dykes' tender debut. Ann Bliss is a consumer analyst in Chicago, still reeling from a college scandal eight years before, involving false claims she made in an anthropological paper. Largely ignored by her military parents while growing up, Ann feels anxious nearly everywhere except Ansel-by-the-Sea, Maine the fishing town where she spent one summer as a child getting to know her great-uncle Bob Bliss, whom she affectionately calls GrandBob. But after that summer, Ann's father mysteriously forbade her from writing to GrandBob, and, so, in the intervening 20 years, she's kept in touch with him by taking out want ads in his local paper, using them to explain what is going on in her life in clever ways. When Ann receives a copy of the paper with a response to one of her ads, requesting her to return to Ansel-by-the-Sea, she knows something is wrong and, upon arrival, discovers GrandBob is in a coma. In his home, Ann finds a number of boxes filled with stones. Tapping into her anthropological training and with the help of Jeremiah, the handsome, mysterious postman Ann discovers that her great-uncle had been planning a WWII memorial made up of stones sent from the loved ones of those killed in action. As Ann spends time with Jeremiah and alongside GrandBob, her confidence and faith slowly begin to recover. With its believable characters and narrative of atonement, Dykes's impressive debut will appeal to fans of Sarah Sundin or Kate Breslin.
Customer Reviews
CAPTIVATING!
You read a novel for several reasons — to be educated, entertained or escape. Once in a while, you’re blessed to be completely enveloped in a story and discover it gives you a guideline for the future. WHOSE WAVES THESE ARE is one such novel.
Amanda Dykes is a brilliant storyteller. Her descriptions use beautiful imagery and character depth to make you feel as though you are bystander in the novel. This appeals to me because I’m an observer by nature. I just came that way! I like to observe others as they face many differing circumstances to see how they handle life. Dykes’ story is beautiful, deep, challenging, and resonates with imperfect people trying to find a way to correct the wrongs of their pasts and find a clear path for their future.
The next time you’re at the beach or see a gorgeous photo or scene of a beach, consider these words from one of my favorite quotes from this book:
“And if God can keep the tides comin’ and goin’, if he can use the sky itself”—he leans forward, elbows to knees, truncating the last three syllables into exclamation marks—“to pull back an entire ocean, just roll it clean away twice a day, easy as pie . . .” He whistles down like a waterfall. “Why, then he can walk us through this life. Did it at the Red Sea. Does it for us now. One step at a time.”
Dykes concludes her inspiring novel with this beautiful quote in the Afterword. To me, it’s the perfect summary of this fantastic novel!
“Lift your head, brave one. This life is a storm, no doubt about it. But oh, the One who holds those waves, who holds our hearts. What it is, to think of facing this storm in His hands, wrapped in a love that is fathoms—infinite fathoms—deep!”
I was provided an ARC of this book by Bethany House Publishers and NetGalley. The opinions expressed here are completely my own and without influence.