Jenn, a bestselling author, finds herself in the middle of divorce and wants to get away. She packs up the kids and rents a house in her hometown, Pearl Island. Little did she know that her and her kids would find Timmy, Jenn's childhood best friend that disappeared 30 years ago. While trying to figure out what happened to him, Jenn finds out there is a threat to the island. Jenn tries to figure out how to keep her kids as well as juggling everything else on her plate.

What a unique read! I enjoyed that I didn't know what was going to happen next. There was a mix of sea monsters, squidoodles, candy eating creatures, tidal waves, family of opposums, etc. It kept me on my toes.

My favorite part of the book was Jenn and her character development!

Here Beside the Rising Tide is like nothing I've read before. At the beginning of the book, we get to know Jenni and Timmy who become fast friends when Timmy's family visits the beach town Jenni lives in. Then, Timmy drowns, and we jump ahead 30 years. Jenni now Jenn is a best-selling author who is going through a divorce and struggling to write her next book, so she decides to take her two kids back to the town she grew up. And Timmy reappears along with some odd sea creatures.

The premise of this book is pretty out there, but I enjoyed Emily Jane's writing, the characters, and most of the story. The additions of excerpts from Jenn's book series and the self-help book were a nice element. The book lost me a bit with a very long battle between the good sea creatures and the bad one, but I still had a fun time reading this.

Oh man, I am so bummed about this one! I really wanted to adore HERE BESIDE THE RISING TIDE, and I did like the first half. Unfortunately, the further I read, the less enchanted I became with the direction the story took.

HERE BESIDE THE RISING TIDE has a really fun premise: When Jenni was 10 years old, her best friend Timmy disappeared without a trace while wading in the ocean. Jenni is now a successful romance author with two children of her own. Her marriage is ending, she’s unhappy with her career, and she returns to her hometown to clean out her mom’s home when Timmy mysteriously returns from the ocean. He’s still 10 years old and he says he’s there to save the world.

I loved all of this. I enjoyed the humor in Jenni’s ridiculous interactions with her husband and her struggles raising Pokemon-obsessed kids. I found these parts to be Amy Poeppel-ish (a high compliment from me … Poeppel is one of my favorite authors). But then Emily Jane jumped the shark. I just could not get onboard with the rest of the story, which involves a battle between an army of squidoodles (or squidinoxes, once they evolved) and a creature called the Tentageddon.

In addition, I could have done without the excerpts from the Philipia Bay novels, as well as the self-help book. I think these had the potential to be funny, but I just felt that they were a distraction from the story, which was too long at 400 pages.

Unfortunately this book was not for me, but I felt it had much potential. Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Hyperion Avenue for an early digital copy of HERE BESIDE THE RISING TIDE in exchange for my honest opinion.

A bestselling author in a rut, her husband wants a divorce, she's got writer's block, and the only answer is to take her kids and go back to where her life changed, Pearl Island, where her childhood best friend disappeared and she's now stranded on while a giant squad monster invades the island, and did I mention she's met her very hot almost cover book model neighbor who has a crush on her? Talk about an adventure. Jenni Farrow had a best friend when she lived on Pearl Island, Timmy Caruso who had mysteriously disappeared. now 30 years later Jenni is a best selling author of an action-romance series and is desperate to escape her books and her impending divorce from her husband. So what better idea than to take her kids away to the place she had the best summers ever and return to Pearl Island? Yet what she never expects is to find that Timmy has actually emerged from out the sea and is the exact same age he was when he disappeared.... and he is apparently on a mission to save the world and needs Jenni's help. Timmy tells her that there is a creature coming from the water to the island and now it's up to him, Jenny, and her kids to stop it.... and then there is of course Jenni's very sexy contractor who also happened to have almost been the cover model for her books and who has taken an interest in her. Jenni wanted an escape but this adventure is one she was never prepared for, can she save herself, those she loves, and escape this creature from the sea?? This was definitely a unique book and had a nice story about getting out of ruts and finding yourself again. Jenni is learning to find herself again after everything and this book was meant for anyone who has ever felt stuck. The whole monster from the deep aspect of the book was fun too and I do think that this would make a cute movie.

Release Date: January 25,2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Hyperion Avenue for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Not sure why, but I held off on reading this one for quite a while, but I have to say once I started reading I was instantly hooked. This is a wild blending of genres: part sci-fi/fantasy-ish, romance-ish, adventure-ish, mid-life crisis-ish. If that sounds confusing, I’m sure. I just really don’t know how to categorize the one, maybe grown up fairy tale? I know I’d do a horrible job of trying to explain what this book is about, certainly couldn’t do a better job than the book’s blurb so I’m not even going to try. Yes the book are wondrous and perhaps crazy as the blurb makes it sound, and I mean that in the best possible way. No matter how you describe this one, how you’d categorize it, I have to say I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it so much in fact that it made me pick up a copy of Emily Jane’s first novel: On Earth as It Is on Television. Definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for something unique. I’d like the thank Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of Here Beside the Rising Tide.

60/100 or 3.0 stars


This was a fun story with plenty of imagination put into it! Despite the fact that it is an adult story (mostly due to the language), I felt this read like a middle-grade story with an adult protagonist. This isn't a bad thing, but it was a little jarring at times. I liked the messages the author was going for, but the story felt a little too long for my tastes. It got a little boring towards the middle and later thirds of the book. It is interesting enough that I wanted to see how it ended, but I wouldn't be reading it again.
Solid story overall though, but not too memorable, unfortunately.

Squidoodles, weird, strange, quirky and very different book.
This author has a great imagination that was definitely needed to write this quite strange story. I was so confused about what I was reading and if it was happening, in the book that the character was writing or if they were all in some sort of drug/alcohol induced dilutions. This book is sooo different from anything I have ever in my life read.

For people that enjoy sea monsters, sci-fi, fantasy, and divorcee drama give this book a shot. If nothing else you will wonder what the heck you just read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this weird arc.

This book was like a fever dream at times. It was quirky and weird and often delightful.

Jenni is a romance-adventure writer, bored with her career, recently divorced, and feuding with her ex-husband who is becoming more "self-actualized" through some male-empowerment self-help. She decides to take her kids off to the beach for the summer so she can meet the deadline for her next novel and finally clean out her deceased mother's home. But when she's there a young boy claiming to be her childhood best friend (the one whom everyone assumed drowned 30+ years ago) shows up and befriends her children. He sure does look like 10-year-old Timmy, but that can't be, can it? What ensues involves sea monsters, Pokemon-esque battles, and a little romance (this is the primary thing that didn't work too well for me as it just felt a little out of place or underdeveloped).

There were times I really liked this, but there were also some moments when I felt like I had no idea what was happening. It seems like the gist of it is Jenni's life is in transition. She's questioning her purpose and considering her choices and regrets. I related a lot to Jenni as a mother; there were many moments I nodded my head about the impulse to control and then questioning, "Why? Why do I need to be this controlling with my children? Who does it hurt to loosen the reigns a little?"

Through the lens of this fantasy world, grounded in the real one, this novel explored the ways that darkness can come for us all, as can hope. Overall I liked this title and would definitely pick up other work from Emily Jane.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for the DRC. All thoughts are my genuine reading reactions and opinions.

This is a creative and interesting midlife crisis, fantasy, romanceish novel. It starts with 10-year-old Jenni, growing up in a NC island beach town, whose best friend Timmy disappears into the ocean one day. Thirty years later, Jenni returns to the island with her children to take stock of her life and go through her recently deceased mother's house. One day, she encounters Timmy on the beach (still 10 years old), so she tries to figure out what's going on. And there are psychic sea monsters. I thought this was cute and entertaining, but also too long. By the time I got to the big scenes at the end, I just wanted it to be over. There was a lot of ruminating and inner monologue, so if that were cut by 50-75 pages, it would be more engaging. Thanks to Netgalley and Hyperion Avenue for the advance digital copy!

Here Beside the Rising Tide was like nothing I have ever read before.

I was instantly drawn to the description, who doesn't love the beach, a missing 10 year old and apparently sea monsters?

When Jenni was 10 years old, she was galivanting around Pearl Island all by herself, due to her mother working too many shifts and no other adults in her life. She stumbles upon Timmy, a child who is mad that he didn't go to space camp, and has to spend his summer at the beach.

Jenni and Timmy become best friends and are having the best summer of their lives.... until they aren't any more. Timmy is sucked up by a riptide and is never seen again.

So we think......

Jenni flees back to Pearl island 30 years later when she is faced with the death of her mother and news that her husband wants a divorce.
Jennifer is a best selling author and is on a strict deadline from her editor. Her kids ignore her and would rather look at their devices or be with their Dad than socialize with her.

Timmy shows up out of nowhere, and so do the sea monsters.

What a ride. I never read anything sci-fi and it won't be my last. I loved all the twists and turns.

But I mostly loved the scene with her mother. It made me cry.

"The world is a brutal place. And I know how lonely you've felt, I wasn't always there when I wanted to be. But I always wanted to be there."
"I wish I had the answers, I wish I knew the right thing to do, and I've tried, but I've always just had to make it up as I went along. But what I do know now Jenni, is that if anyone can figure it out, if there's anyone strong enough, smart enough, creative enough, it's you."

I rated this book a 3.5 because at times it was hard for me to follow. I also felt as though the main character was having a hard time following the story. What was real life and what was all in her mind? or in her manuscript that she was writing.

Thanks to NetGalley, Hyperion Avenue, and Emily Jane for the eARC, in exchange for an honest review.

Here Beside the Rising Tide will be released January 28.

Here Beside the Rising Tide by Emily Jane was a great, lighthearted read with a touch of...sea monsters? This book is about an author, Jenn, who goes home to escape her ex-husband (not soon enough) and comes across a boy, Timmy. Let's just say, you have to read to the book - you won't be disappointed! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.

Fairytale for Adults! What a joyous unexpected adventure Emily Jane has created. Just to be a kid again and have every quirky, hysterical, and imaginative idea come to life! I couldn't read the last 100 pages fast enough, but wanting to go slow to enjoy every detail. I highly recommend this story if you need some joy in your life!

This book was just the right kind of weird, with just (squid) oodles of different, and seemingly strange but fun pieces combining together into something fresh and charmingly bizarre. Emily Jane has a real talent for writing children and participating in literary discourse in a way that is easy to read and not overbearing or pretentious. Finally, of course I enjoyed the inclusion of some references to The Grateful Dead and assuredly other jam bands as well (Lotus is also mentioned).

Synopsis: Jenni and her two kids have to save the world from sea monsters with the help of her best friend who disappeared into the sea when they were 10 years old.

Thoughts: I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know how to write this review - this is a weird book y’all. I’m fairly certain it’s supposed to be weird though, so I think you just have to go with it! The plot is bonkers and kept me on the edge of my seat. Featuring scary, apocalyptic sea monsters and also cute lil monsters called Squidoodles and two charming kids who think they’re in a real-life Pokemon battle, it’s definitely a lot of fun. There’s also a romance side-plot with a hot contractor that I thought was a great addition to the story. If that all sounds fun to you, go grab this book next week!

Read this if you like:
🌊 sci fi
🌊 scary sea monsters
🌊 cute sea monsters
🌊 apocalyptic stories
🌊 Pokemon
🌊 family stories
🌊 humor
🌊 romance side plot

10 year old Jenni finally makes a friend, and he’s her best friend - Timmy Caruso visits Jenni’s beach town for the summer and the two spend all of their time together, until one day, Timmy disappears into the sea. Years later Jenni, separated from her husband, returns to her hometown with her children, and finds a 10 year old boy playing in the surf. It turns out it’s Timmy and he is there to help save the world from a vicious sea monster.

I think this book could have gone a few ways and I still would have liked it, but the actual execution didn’t work for me. I found this a weird book not only because of its plot line, but the tone of the novel didn’t seem to be written for what was happening on the page. I ended up skimming the last 30% in order to finish. I enjoyed the non sea monster parts because the tone worked and these scenes were about Jenni and her children interacting with the town, but the sea monster parts just didn’t work for me personally.

Thank you to Hyperion and NetGalley for the ARC to review

That was weird. But enjoyable?

Jenni, an author grown tired of her own series, is spiraling after the death of her mother and her husband leaves her and threatens to seek custody of their children. In a fit of mania, she takes her children and dog to the small island town she grew up in.

She needs to clean and fix up her mother's abandoned house. She needs to finish writing her next installment in the series.

Instead she develops a crush on the contractor her editor hired, finds her friends who went missing 30 years ago - somehow still 10 years old, and finds herself trapped on the island by a evil sea monster. But not to worry, friendly squid like sea monsters with a penchant for sweets is also there to help!

Yeah. I'm sure everything is meant to be a metaphor and has deep meaning for the author or those who care to dig deeper.

So yeah. It was really weird, but I did blast right on through it so it was engaging and definitely not boring.

A genre bending novel that at its heart is about grief and rebuilding your life. Jenn is back on Pearl Island after 30 years trying to cope with the death of both her mother and her marriage. Oh and her kids. Then her past, in the form of Timmy, who died all those years ago, returns. And so does a sea monster or two. Strange events (but never truly horrible) ensue and so does a little romance. It's an odd mix that wasn't really for me but I know that others will like it. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. It's imaginative and well told.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hyperion Press, and Emily Jane for allowing me to read a free eGalley of this novel in exchange for this honest review.

HERE BESIDE THE RISING TIDE by Emily Jane reads sort of like a STRANGER THINGS season if Nancy had decided to become a romantic suspense novelist and was stuck on one of the small barrier islands along the southeastern seaboard with a sea monster while having a middle-life crisis. There is a lot going on in this novel, and it is definitely unique in all that is tries to accomplish.

At first, it started off really strong for me as a reader. I was excited to see how things unfolded. The novel opens with Jenni as a ten-year-old, enjoying life on Pearl Island where she lives with her single mom. Reading about her childhood at the start of her summer vacation was nostalgic for me as Jane paints a very rich and fully developed world with her depiction of Jenni's island life. It put me squarely in this setting and had me reminiscing about family vacations on similar islands to Pearl Island along the coastline of the Carolinas or Georgia. We know from the first as well, that things will suddenly change once Jenni meets and befriends Timmy Caruso who is on Pearl Island on vacation with his family. It isn't a spoiler to say that things do take a turn for Jenni when her new best friend disappears. From there we jump ahead to Jenn, now a successful writer, facing the end of her marriage and the possible loss of custody to her children. In response to this, she decides to return to her childhood home and spend the summer there with her kids to try and reconnect with them and also to escape the dumpster fire she feels her life has become.

There are many things that this novel does well. The way the author vividly paints the setting of this island at the beginning of the novel and later when Jenn returns makes it easy to visualize this place through the character's eyes. It was also fun to read some excerpts of Jenn's popular romantic suspense series throughout the story as Jenn comes to terms with so many things in her life that she's tried to avoid, such as the loss of her mother, her waning interest in the character that has made her a bestselling author, and her dissolution of her marriage and in some regards her relationship with her kids. The introduction of the strange sea life that Jenn encounters on Pearl Island as a child and later with her kids as an adult is also well portrayed. We aren't sure at first how benevolent some of these alien sea creatures are or how they are tied to the scarier sea creature that has shown up in the depths near this island. There are also some really beautiful moments where the author portrays Jenn's almost existential struggles and ties them to the reappearance of Jenn's best friend Timmy, still as a ten-year-old boy, and these sci-fi sea creatures. As with this quote here:

"...as a woman on a beach, feet in the sand, sun on her face, hair blown back by the ocean breeze while the weird squids sloshed along the shore, ....; as the future of a girl with a best friend and a pair of shovels and the dream of a hole in the sand, big enough to sit in for a picnic lunch. It didn't matter that the ocean would wash the hole away. She could find herself down there, the small pearl of her deepest small self. Smooth around the edges, like a piece of sea glass. Not new, but still bright."

As the story unfolds, Jenn's grief is inextricably tied to the disaster of the sea monster that wants to destroy the world, and Jane portrays this with some lovely and heartbreaking prose such as in this moment when Jenn discusses the loss of her mother with someone who knew her:

"Not close. But I knew Maureen. She was lovely. I'm so sorry--"
"Thanks. Me too."
"And so young. I--I guess you never know what will happen. You try your best and have hope, but sometimes, no matter what you do--"
"The unstoppable beast shows up."

All that being said, I did find the midpoint of the story, once Jenn returns to the island, to drag on. She spends much of the novel from that point, continuing to avoid her problems while also obsessing over them and questioning everything she's doing. And while this was marketed in part as a romance, I didn't see much romance developing throughout most of the story until almost the very end. I feel like there were many missed opportunities for character development for both the adult Jenn and for her love interest Dax. I also think the pacing of the story would have been better if it had been a shorter novel. So, while I did enjoy the beginning and found the ending to be a satisfying conclusion, I struggled to get through most of the story in between. For that reason, I give this one 3 out of 5 stars for this review.

Still, if you like novels that have crossover elements, in this case sci-fi, light romance, and starting over, components, then you might give this one a try.

.

I was definitely expecting this book to be something it wasn’t. I think some people are going to love this one, but it just wasn’t for me. The writing was fine, the character development was lacking, and it was just…too strange for me.

What a fun read! I enjoyed the first book from this author and I also enjoyed this one. She is so silly and whimsical and outlandish while also being incredibly deep and introspective and poignant. I never knew where this book was going and I loved that. I think that some ppl may find this slow as there's lots of internal monologue, but I liked the main character and related to her a lot so l was down for it. I loved the concept of this book and I loved the execution!
Four stars because I think at times it was a bit slow but overall I would recommend.