The Song the Waves Sing by Val Harris
| The Song the Waves Sing by Val Harris | |
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| Category: General Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: The sequel to Sea Creatures can be read as a standalone and has many of the great characters and locations which made the first book so memorable. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 267 | Date: February 2013 |
| Publisher: Gingercat Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0955599781 | |
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Some time has passed since we last saw the Moon family. Charlie Moon has been released from prison. His sister Olivia is in New York but Jenna is still in Cornwall, where she's turned the family home into a B&B. Their father Brendan is a reformed character and he's moved to Looe, where he's a partner in an art gallery. But everyone's life has its ups and downs: Olivia is made redundant and the only logical move is back to the UK. Then Brendan overhears a conversation and realises that his business partner is deep in an art fraud.
I read a lot of books and not many of the characters really stay in my mind, but one of the exceptions has been Jenna Moon. She's genuine. Her first concern is always for other people - be they her wayward brother, the father whom her brother and sister felt had treated them shabbily or her younger sister who's always dealt with problems by running away from them. Jenna's the Moon family's rock, the one to whom they return. But what of Jenna herself? What does she want from life?
You could read this book as a standalone - it's a good gripping story - but you will get more out of it if you've read Sea Creatures first. There's quite a history to the Moon family - it crosses continents and involves challenges beyond the ken of most families, but it's still, at heart, an incisive look at the family dynamic and the vagaries of human nature. Val Harris has perfectly nailed the way that you can be alienated from your family, but when push comes to shove they still come first.
The story grabbed me and I ended up reading into the early hours of the morning when I really hadn't intended to. It's got that 'just another few pages' readability about it and if you're looking for a holday read then you could do a LOT worse. I've just one quibble about the book and it's that the text could have done with a final proofread before publication.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.
for more from Cornwall we can recommend The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and The Weight of Water by Penelope Evans.
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Song the Waves Sing by Val Harris at Amazon.com.
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