From BookBub
“Annie Bliss hasn’t seen her beloved great-uncle in decades. When she learns that he’s fallen into a coma, she travels to his small Maine hometown to care for him — and rediscovers her faith along the way. “Tender… Will appeal to fans of Sarah Sundin or Kate Breslin” (Publishers Weekly).”
featured on BookBub on April 30, 2019
Publisher Description
“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.”
My Review:
Y’all! This story is not just a good story, it’s a GREAT story. I was completely captivated by this book. It’s hard to believe that this is Amanda Dykes’ debut novel. This story reads as if it’s been written by a well-established author. Her writing is so expressive. The way she describes the scenes in this story, especially her description of the sea, made me feel that I was sitting in the boat traveling through the water. The characters’ personalities spring to life and by the time I finished the book, I wished that I could travel to Ansel, Maine, and meet them. Even the secondary characters rise to the occasion and find their perfect place in the defining chapter near the end of the book.
This is not a typical summertime romance novel. This is a story about family love and loyalty; holding each other up through great tragedy and having faith to believe that God places individuals in our lives for specific times and purposes. The character of Robert Bliss is the heart and soul of the story. His deep love for his family and his faith in God guides every circumstance all throughout the book. The final two chapters had me in tears—not because of tragedy, but because of the triumph of Robert’s faith and the impact it had on those around him. The theme of this book could be “Beauty comes from brokenness”. It’s a welcome message to all of us who have experienced brokenness in our own lives.
This story is multi-layered, and switches back and forth from years past to present day. Don’t let this discourage you from continuing to read at the beginning of the book. Those layers come together to make one of the best stories I’ve read this year. Well done, Amanda Dykes. If this is your first book, I can hardly wait to see what you have next for us.
Absolutely agree. Look for this one to win awards!