Current-day Jenn is a best-selling author and mother to two distracted and bratty children. She's in the process of divorcing her entitled husband, and mired in a sea of transactional emotional relationships. Childhood Jenni grew up on Pearl Island, where her best friend Timmy mysteriously disappeared in the ocean 30 years ago. (For 10-year-old Jenni, it had been the best summer ever until suddenly it wasn't.) Returning to the island with her children after her mother's death, ostensibly to clear out her mother's  house, Jenn inexplicably encounters Timmy. Frozen in time at age 10, he claims he was sent back on a mission to save the world. But from what, exactly? What really happened to Timmy? And what, exactly, is that lurking out in the water?

Holy cow, what a ride. The book sometimes seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be, it was a mash-up of sci-fi and mid-life existential crisis with a dash of romance. It also had more of a horror story element than I expected, especially as the book went on. There was a lot of underlying tension and a persistent feeling of foreboding, and I was unsure what or who to trust after awhile.  (Much like adulthood, I guess.) The wistfulness is strong in this story (especially in the first half), and there's a palpable mournfulness for all  things lost. Jenn seemed adrift, and also deeply unhappy. In fact, there's a distinct thread of unhappiness in all of the current-day characters. I'll be honest, I do think that the ennui and emotional listlessness of the first part of the book went on too long. It started to feel like a bit too much, because for a large part of the story there wasn't lot of hopefulness and the narrative and interpersonal detachment among the characters constantly kept me on edge to some degree. This definitely served as a distinct juxtaposition to the final chapters of the book, but I think the author took a risk that she'd lose readers to all of the free-floating emotional misery that hung over a large part of the book. Overall the writing was very well done and the mystery of Timmy's disappearance and return, as well as the looming danger that kept snowballing (and an endearing hope that everything would turn out okay), was enough to keep me reading.

I did not see this story coming and I don't think the book description really does it justice. I haven't read this author before and I am in awe of her imagination, that she created such an off-kilter and fantastical story that blended together such a punch of emotions by the end. I did struggle a bit with the layers of this complex story, which kept shifting my expectations of what it was, especially when things took a dark turn. Events didn't really pick up speed until after the halfway mark so I was glad I kept reading. I did eventually enjoy this book, even though I'm still not 100% sure what I read. My best advice to you is to stick with it and suspend disbelief, you'll be very glad you did. Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this story, this has been my objective review. Publishes January 28, 2025.