Whose Waves These Are

March 25, 2019
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.