Shea Ernshaw's HABITS OF THE SEA

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Atria Books for the digital ARC of Shea Ernshaw’s Habits of the Sea. The book will be published on July 7! 

As a reader, I know that I can always count on Shea Ernshaw’s novels to offer rich, evocative, and atmospheric narratives. Some are spookier than others, but all of them have a sense of stories unearthed.

Ernshaw’s newest book, Habits of the Sea, is her second written for adults, and it is gorgeous and completely immersive.

The novel begins with a horrible loss: the death of Clay Lockhart’s wife and unborn twins. His grief is such that it causes their land to break away from Scotland, becoming an island that drifts on the whims of the ocean, meeting up occasionally with a coastline here or there, and then drifting away again.

Ellie Mills first encounters the island when she’s twelve. She’s awakened by a strange light, goes out to the island to see if she can help, and meets Clay briefly before returning to shore.

When she arrives home, her grandmother tells her that a week has passed.

Though Ellie shares her strange story, no one believes her. Called a liar for her entire childhood, she has spent her life denying the existence of the island and of Clay, seeking counseling to help her accept her own denials. In her thirties, Ellie is now a counselor herself and is desperate to capture the stability that has escaped her for most of her life.

And then the island reappears.

Unable to resist, Ellie travels to its fleeting location, swims out to the island, and finds that Clay and the island DO exist . . . and that Clay hasn’t aged since she last saw him, decades before. Now, she’s trapped, separated from her family and fiance, uncertain of how much time is passing as she and Clay reach a type of truce.

Oh, this is such a fabulous story, one fueled by dueling forces of grief and hope, betrayal and loyalty, denial and belief. It once again confirms Ernshaw as an auto-read author, able to spin out captivating stories that I can’t stop reading.

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