Whose Waves These Are is a debut novel which has very deservedly just won the Christy Award Book of the Year 2020. It's written in such a way that you would think the author had years of novel writing experience behind her. It begins with two brothers over whom the spectre of war looms large. After the war, a grieving Robert writes a poem and sends it to a local newspaper. In it, he asks people to send rocks out of which he will build a memorial. When the poem spreads far and wide, the small harbour village of Ansel-by-the-Sea is inundated with rocks, but the building of the memorial does not run smoothly.
Decades later, Annie Sawyer is summoned back to Ansel and her Great-Uncle Bob by another message in a newspaper:
“‘Come home, Annie. Bess.’ There was only one reason Bess would write to her this way. The only reason Bob himself would not write. Something had happened that made it so he couldn’t.”
And so Annie heads back to Maine, where she meets the enigmatic harbour postman Jeremiah, tries to work out why Bob has boxes and boxes of rocks, and yearns to heal the rift in her family.
The themes of family, secrets, forgiveness and love are woven throughout this story. The characters are so well described that you feel invested in their stories, and there are a number of stories within this book. They’re each carefully and convincingly told – no ‘bit part’ characters here, but rather demonstrations of how grief, love, and hope can cross years and even countries and result in something beautiful.
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