Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

About the Book:

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:

I was drawn by the cover and the title is interesting, but I was ill prepared for the contents of this novel. This book is captivating. From the time I read the line about the rocks, I hoped the book would live up to my expectations. It surpassed them. It encompasses love and loss, and hopes and dreams, and fear and life all at once. It pulls history and the past into the here and now. It will make you cry. (Sometimes that's a good thing!) This beautiful Maine setting with romance and so many details sticks with you long after the book is closed. Without skimping on faith, this book is a gambit of emotions and deserves every high start rating it gets. 

5 HUGE STARS! 

Thanks to Bethany House for my copy of this book. My review is all mine, left freely. 

About the Author: 

Amanda Dykes is the author of Bespoke: A Tiny Christmas Tale, the critically-acclaimed bicycle story that invited readers together to fund bicycles for missionaries in Asia. A former English teacher, she has a soft spot for classic literature and happy endings. She is a drinker of tea, a dweller of Truth, and a spinner of hope-filled tales, grateful for the grace of a God who loves extravagantly.