A whimsical story of to-be single mom and her kids on a last minute vacation only to encounter past mysteries, sea monsters, and growing up. I really wanted to like this but the characters were a bit flat and the pacing seemed a bit off. Thank you to NetGalley for a chance to read and review this book.

Emily Jane’s latest novel is an intriguing blend of fantasy, family drama, and self-discovery that takes readers on a unique and unpredictable journey. The story follows Jenni, a romance-adventure writer stuck in a career rut, newly divorced, and navigating the challenges of single motherhood. Hoping to meet her book deadline and confront the emotional task of clearing out her late mother’s house, Jenni takes her kids to the beach for the summer. But her plans take a bizarre turn when a young boy, claiming to be her childhood best friend who disappeared over 30 years ago, suddenly appears. This strange encounter sets off a whirlwind of events involving mysterious sea monsters, Pokémon-like battles, and a surprising dash of romance.

While the premise is captivating and creative, the novel occasionally feels uneven. The romance subplot, for instance, didn’t quite land for me—it felt underdeveloped and somewhat out of place compared to the stronger, more cohesive elements of the story. That said, Jenni’s emotional journey as a mother and a woman in transition was deeply relatable. Her internal conflict, especially her reflections on parenting—wanting to control her kids but also questioning the need for that control—was authentic and resonant.

The fantasy elements were imaginative and added an unexpected depth, exploring the ways darkness can creep into our lives and how hope can shine through even in the strangest circumstances. At times, the narrative veered into moments where I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but the overarching themes of transformation and resilience kept me engaged.

Emily Jane has a knack for creating a story that’s both otherworldly and grounded in relatable truths about family, grief, and finding one’s way. Despite its uneven pacing, this novel was an enjoyable read it just was not my cup of tea.

Read to about 30%. Much stranger than the cover and description seems to imply. Just not for me!

What I did read seemed jumbled and a little confusing. I'm curious to see where it goes, but just don't feel like now is the right time for this read.

They say don't judge a book by its cover, yet I continue to do just that. To me, I thought I was getting a cute, summery read when I picked up the ARC for this book. I was not expecting apocalypse style battle against squid-like sea monsters, and instead of a coming-of-age story, that's what I got.

When Jenni was ten, her best friend Timmy disappears into the ocean. Her small beach town assumes he drowned and his family moves away. Now, thirty years later, Jenni is back in town, grappling with her husband filing for divorce, cleaning out her mother's home, and dealing with children who she has lost touch with. One day, a young boy emerges out of the water, claiming to be Timmy, and claiming that he is back on a mission to save the world.

This is definitely heavy on the sci-fi side of things. I can't decide if I enjoyed it or hated it, it came and went in waves. The writing style is definitely unique, and the story was entertaining, but basically the entire final 40% is an epic battle scene that felt like it could've been taken care of in two chapters. That is why I struggled so much with writing a review for this.

I might recommend this if you're looking for something unique or different, but it's not jumping to the top of my must read list by any means.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early review copy.

This was awesome and absolutely unhinged in the very best way

I usually have several books going at once, and I switch between them depending on where I am or the time of day. But once I started this book, I did not want to read anything else. I can't even explain why it drew me in so thoroughly. (Of course then I dumped a bowl of soup on my phone, which is my only Kindle device, so then I was FORCED to stop reading this for two days. The agony!)

It's hard to define what this book is. Is it humorous, or serious? Is it chick lit, or literature? Real or fantasy? It is all of those things at once, and it balances perfectly between each of those domains; the tension of watching this book walk that tightrope is somehow also the tension that pulled me right in. (I know that sounds like a mixed metaphor ,but it's not, because tension is literally caused by pulling on something. In this case, it was pulling on ME!)


Told from multiple POVs:
Jenn, the main protagonist
Eve - Jenn's daughter
Mason - Jenn's son
Betsy Rankleman - Jenn's editor
and there might have been a few others in there that I missed.

This absurd story is what you'd get if you gave a bunch of 6 yos crayons and markers and glitter glue and asked them to draw a sea monster battle, and then took their story and imbedded it in a story of a middle aged couple dealing with their crumbling marriage and wondering if this is all life has to offer and if they've done the best they could with it and if they are doing the best they can for their kids. It's sort of like a cozy Mona Awad. It is absolutely ludicrous, completely batshit insane, and yet it is filled with pathos and meaning and depth.


A note for dog lovers: Barry, the goofy Airedale, disappears for a while, but he shows up again unscathed. Do not worry!

I’m not sure what I just read. But I liked it. Jenn and Timmy were best friends in the way only kids who meet over the summer can be. Their weirds match. They find a strange creature and release it back to the ocean. That bonds you. It’s practically instant.

And then in another instance, Timmy is gone. Assumed drowned. Just disappeared. For a few decades. He returns, still 1o, with the strange creature and its friends. And something else. Then everything goes upside down.

The feel of the entire book brought me back to 80s movies where kids understood all of the things most adults didn’t and were left to save us all. Nostalgia aside, the relationship between Jenn and Timmy, both as children and with one as an adult was still magical. Your best friend is your best friend.

My favorite, though, must have been grandma. The few adults who would listen went forward with everything they had. The time travel stuff got pretty messy. But it always does. And if you are feeling twisted around by what I just wrote, you are ready to read this one.

I got this book as an ARC from Netgalley. The book starts us off with Jenni, a ten year old girl who lives on Pearle Island with her mom who is always working to be able to able to maintain their bills. Jenni fills her days with trips to the beach where she meets Timmy, a boy in town for the summer. But a tragedy cuts their adventures short.

Fast forward 30 years and Jenn is now a very famous author with her adventure series Philipia Bay. But her personal life is falling apart as her husband is leaving her and her kids seem disinterested. She decides to take her kids for a summer at her childhood town of Pearle Island only for things to take a very weird turn.

To me, this book did too much and it didn't always fit together. I'm still having trouble understanding how an author would be so busy always writing to never see her family as that's one of those jobs you can do a little more flexibly. She's also a successful author with tons of money so surely her deadlines could wait a little bit.

The mix of a contemporary story of divorce and family seems at odds with the sea monster aspect of it. You also have the kids always talking about Pokemon which killed me because sometimes the Pokemon were real (like Eevee and Pikachu) but mostly she made up Pokemon names. I felt like she should have just committed to it or has it be completely made up. That really took me out of the story.

The climax of the story is definitely interesting but the resolution seemed a little too easy for how intense the conflict got. It all felt much too sudden.

Thank you Netgalley for the early arc of Here Beside the Rising Tide. I really wanted to read this one and I'm so glad I was able to. I would highly recommend reading this as well. It's a great story and should be shared. I rated this 4.5 stars.

I tried three times to read this book by a new to me author and could just not get into it! What sounded interesting turned out to be a rambling, weird, just not for me story. Sadly I DNF'd after less than halfway through. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

DNF @28%

I'm so disappointed that I didn't like this. Everything about it was just so annoying and ridiculous. I really didn't like the main character.

Here Beside the Rising Tide is an unusual book. It begins as the story of a steamy romance writer’s own divorce. It adds a bit of romance and a whole lot of fantasy. Not sexual fantasy…but Pokémon fantasy? What if renamed Pokémon characters were recruited to fight off a real sea monster trying to destroy the world? Oh, and don’t forget the ten-year-old boy who disappeared into the sea decades ago only to return unchanged decades later. WTF?

I like fantasy but this book goes a bit too far into the deep end for me. This is coming from someone obsessed enough with playing Pokémon Go that I actually walked outside (and not just to my car) for a year after it came out. But Here Beside the Rising Tide pushes my love for animalistic fantasy friends to the breaking point.

This book could be the perfect choice for former (and current—no judgment here) Pokémon card and old school “color” and “gem” video game fans. For others, it will take a lot of imagination, and a very active ability to suspend disbelief, to enjoy this unique book. 3 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for providing me with an advanced review copy.

Maybe 2.5 stars rounded up. There is A LOT going on in this story, it's certainly a mash up of genres. There's some contemporary fiction, some action and romance, and weirdly maybe a Pokemon meets Power Rangers vibe. Mostly it's a goofy fun time, but sometimes it did feel like the goofy fun time was going on a little too long. I did find the main character Jenn relatable. I am no stranger to existential crises and also tend to choose avoidance, but after a while even I was like "you gotta put down the wine, feed your kids something other than gummy worms, and deal with it!" I do really like how the story captures the feeling that everything is happening at once. Jenn is dealing with impending divorce, grieving her mother, feeling stagnant professionally, and then an epic challenge like an attacking sea monster tops it all off. The return of Timmy, the squidoodles, the sea monster battle, the travel across the time/space continuum is all light-hearted, fun, absurdity. But it's also during the absurdity that Jenn is processing and making breakthroughs. Overall, it's a good story, it's just that occasionally it drug and my attention wandered. Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for the DRC in exchange for an honest review.

A woman whose life has spun out of control takes a spontaneous vacation with her kids. When they get stuck because of sea monsters and a missing-persons mystery, the woman realizes she may need to brace herself for losing control on a whole different level. Emily Jane returns with her second novel that loses steam in Here Beside the Rising Tide.

Jenn Lanaro is fed up. Her husband, Chuck, graciously agreed to give up his job as a car salesman and stay at home when the kids came along, and at the time it was a good idea. Jenn’s been raking in serious money since her action-romance book series took off, and Chuck has always been great with the kids. On paper no woman could ask for more than a man who supports her creative dreams.

But everything is far from rosy. Chuck has recently moved to a condo and asked for a divorce. He says he and Jenn haven’t been connecting lately, and Jenn is getting sick of hearing about the self-help thought leader who is Chuck’s new mentor. Who has time to connect when she has to keep brainstorming new ideas for new books and delivering on them to her insatiable audience?

On a day when Chuck says taking the kids back to his place, Jenn decides she has to try to win back her children’s affection. Without warning anyone, including herself, she packs up her precocious tweens and starts driving from Ohio to the North Carolina coast. There’s only one place in the world where Jenn knows everything will be right again: Pearl Island.

Growing up on Pearl Island was mostly an idyllic experience. It’s also where she met her best friend, Timmy Laruso, the year Jenn turned 10. Jenn and Timmy were inseparable that summer he and his family came to stay on Pearl Island, and they had amazing kid adventures together. Until Timmy went swimming in the ocean one day and never came back.

Losing Timmy was one of the most difficult experiences of Jenn’s life; so was her mother’s death from cancer. But even those two tragedies can’t take the sheen off Pearl Island, and Jenn can’t wait to share her childhood with her kids. Once she can get them to look up from their screens, that is.

Then something happens that gets everyone’s attention: Timmy emerges from the ocean as his 10-year-old self. He says he’s back to save the world, and he needs Jenn’s help to do it. Jenn debates reporting this found child to the police—there’s no way he could actually be Timmy, right?—but the appearance of bizarre sea creatures makes her second-guess herself. Then comes the real monster, and Jenn starts questioning the things she thought she knew about herself best.

Author Emily Jane’s second novel is just as quirky as her first, and the two share similarities. Jane’s child characters are full of funny one-liners and earned wisdom. The plots of both books veer into completely unexpected places that, within their respective story worlds, make sense. Also, at the heart of both novels are protagonists who want nothing more than to go back to the safety, security, and love that is home.

Yet unlike the tight, crisp plot of On Earth As It Is on Television, Here Beside the Rising Tide flounders once Jenn arrives in Pearl Island. Her gusto and determination to take charge crumble the minute her feet hit the sand, and all of Jenn’s sections in the middle of the book show her wringing her hands; sometimes literally. Nowhere is this more painfully obvious than when the battle with the sea monster begins. The kids become the real stars of the novel who act like protagonists, and Jenn comes off as a secondary or even tertiary character along for the ride.

The novel includes from Jenn’s books as well as from the self-help material Chuck reads, and on the surface it seems like these texts are supposed to be in conversation with one another to enrich the plot. In reality, the excerpts feel extraneous. Some of them are entertaining, but they don’t do much for the overarching story. Random chapters from other characters feel like wasted opportunities, because they’re so interesting on their own that some readers may feel frustrated about not getting more from them.

Emily Jane’s ability to create three-dimensional characters saves the book from being a complete washout, however, and the premise is off-the-wall fun. Those who enjoyed Jane’s first book will definitely want to check this one. Others new to her work may want to read her first book instead.

Romance author Jenn decides to break away from the chaos of her life - book deadlines and dealing with her soon-to-be ex-husband - and take her kids on a summer vacation to Pearl Island. However, Pearl Island also holds some emotional history for Jenn because it is where she grew up. Since her mother's passing, Jenn has rarely been back, plus Pearl Island also comes with the unresolved trauma of Jenn's best friend's disappearance thirty years ago. As with many people, when life gets tough you just want to run home and bury your head in the sand - as the case may be.

Almost immediately after they arrive, strange things begin to happen, least of which is the return of Jenn's best friend - still aged 10 from when he disappeared. But he comes with a message, something is out in the water. This rather ominous declaration is further corroborated by other boaters, swimmers, paddle-boarders who have run into trouble....or those that just haven't come back. When the island becomes shut off from the mainland, Jenn will need to reconcile with events in her past to save her family in the present.

This book kind of came out of nowhere for me. I was not expecting it to be what it turned out to be which is this, at times, heartbreaking look at loss in many forms - loss of a parent, loss of a friend, loss of the life you pictured for yourself - while looking back and wondering how you ended up in your current present.

Coupled with all of that we have sea monsters, and squid creatures, and boys who disappeared thirty years ago. It also becomes about finding yourself again. Maybe not who you used to be but who you decide to be going forward.

It takes Jenn the majority of the book to even start to get things figured out, and until then it feels a bit chaotic, but not to the point where it was too much. For all that, it is a slower build until we get to the huge conflict of the sea monster which is kind of this ominous looming presence in the background. At times the road to that confrontation seemed to drag on a little too slowly, and honestly as I write this review and I'm thinking back to the story, I struggle to pinpoint exact facts about what goes down (without having to actually reopen the book and look). Moreso, it's the feeling that I remember of people coming together to solve a threat. No one is thinking about anything else beyond how we can survive. So then there's that added layer of community thrown in there.

I appreciate the novelty of the story. As something completely unexpected yet with hints of the familiar. This is the first book I've read by Emily Jane, but I'm eager to jump into another thoughtful story enshrouded in a, at times, wacky adventure.

Happy Pub Week to this whimsical, wacky book! Thanks so much to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for the advance copy.

“Life was a losing battle, really. Everything else out there in the vast beyond was so lifeless and empty. Mostly, a person had to look away. But there came a moment, or many moments, when a person had to extract their proverbial head from the sand and set aside their screens and remove their headphones and stand witness.”

When she was 10, Jenni and her new best friend Timmy were having an incredible summer on Pearl Island. They spent countless hours on the beach and in the water, setting off fireworks, and simply enjoying the freedom of not having any responsibility. They even helped a strange sea creature make its way back to the ocean. But suddenly, Timmy disappeared one day when they were in the water, and no one knew what happened.

Now, at 40, Jenn is the bestselling author of a smutty romance/action series. She’s also in the midst of a divorce from her self-help-book-addicted husband, with their two children caught in the crossfire. Her next book is overdue and she needs to escape, so she rents a beach house on Pearl Island for the summer, hoping she can keep her soon-to-be-ex at bay.

One night a familiar-looking boy comes out of the water. He says his name is Timmy, and he needs Jenn’s help to save the world. And things get totally crazy: shark attacks, sea monsters, even the return of the adorable sea creatures from their youth. At the same time, Jenn is attracted to a sexy contractor while trying to finish her books.

This is part sci-fi, part coming of age novel. It’s definitely all over the place, but it has such an enormous heart. I felt like it ran a bit longer than it needed to—there were lots of excerpts from Jenni's books and her husband’s self-help books that I could’ve done without. But Emily Jane drew me in with her storytelling for sure.

This was such a fun, quirky read about a romance author Jean Lanardo who is in the middle of a custody battle and dealing with a looming deadline decides to return to her childhood home on Pearl Island. When a boy wanders out of the ocean claiming to be her childhood best friend and gelatinous creatures keep appearing in the surf she knows Jeans life is upturned in the best way possible.

This was such a fun, imaginative read that I truly enjoyed. Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy

A woman who lost a friend in the ocean when they were ten years old is struggling with her life as an adult, wife, mother, and writer. Though she's written a best-selling women's action/mystery/spy novel series, she finds it formulaic and uninspiring, unmotivated to edit her latest novel.
Her marriage has been suffering for years, and now her stay at home dad of a husband is divorcing her. Her kids are addicted to Pokémon and screen time and have already begun pitting their parents against each other. So Jenn has decided to take her kids on an impromptu beach vacation to decide what to do with her mother's old house, and to try to bond with her children. But it's on the same beach where she grew up, and where Timmy disappeared 30 years ago. And has just reappeared. With a mission to save the world, though he's not sure how or from what. Then strange things begin happening, like creatures in the sea, a tsunami hits the carnival, and they find a strange sea creature from the ocean who grows when it's fed candy.

Jenn struggles, insecurities, and complaints as a mother/writer/wife are a bit redundant and excessive, repeated again and again over the first 35% of the book, and comprise most of her inner monologue during this section. Rising action takes a bit of time to finally begin as well. But anyone who has nostalgia for childhoods at the beach or candy on the boardwalk, and is also into a bit of sea monster fantasy, should appreciate this book.

I was given an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review from Net Galley. All opinions expressed are solely mine and do not reflect the publisher, author, or affiliates.

This book was an interesting read, it promised to be sea beach and carnival vibes. However, I found that I was largely uninterested in what was going on, the writing style was hard for myself to get into and I ended up not finishing the book, as I was fearful that it was going to put me into a slump.

Thanks to netgalley & the publisher for my early e-arc copy.

What a unique, clever, page-turning, strange, romantic, sci-fi, mystery. I couldn't put this book down and I also wasn't sure I liked any of the characters. Usually liking a character is important to me, but it wasn't in this book. I was fascinated by where the story was going. This is a creative blend of story types -- I'm not sure I've read anything like it? It has a mystery, a mom struggling, a sea monster and more. I'll be thinking about this one for awhile!

"Life was a losing battle, really. Everything else out there in the vast beyond was so lifeless and empty. Mostly, a person had to look away. But there came a moment, or many moments, when a person had to extract their proverbial head from the sand and set aside their screens and remove their headphones and stand witness."

"But life is absurd. We have to revel in the absurdity."

What a heartwarming, life-affirming book!

Did I think I would love a book about sea monsters? Not really, but I loved Emily Jane's previous book about space alien cats and thought this one would appeal as well and I was correct.

Jenn is a best selling romance author and mother of two young children, Evie (10) and Mason (7). She and her husband are separated and heading for divorce. Thirty years ago, as a child, Jenn met a boy named Timmy one summer when he was vacationing on the island where she lived. They rescued a funny sea creature and shortly thereafter, Timmy disappears while they are swimming in the ocean and is presumed drowned. At a crossroads in her life, Jenn packs up the children and takes them to the island in order to clean out her late mother's house. But who should appear in the ocean but Timmy, still ten years old and with some interesting tales to tell.

It's difficult to capture what this book is about in a paragraph. Suffice it to say, it's both magical realism and fantasy. A coming of age novel and a midlife novel. It explores serious topics in a very silly way. You have to be willing to go with the silliness and not take everything too literally or too seriously.

There are a couple of things I thought could have been condensed or eliminated, mainly there are too man excerpts from Jenn's romance novels and from her ex's weird self help books. I didn't think they added much to further the plot along.

Overall, I felt like this book was filled with adventure, humor, and made me think about life and all of its nuances. If you like a bit of wacky science fiction with time traveling sea monsters, you'll definitely delight in this novel.