I’ve been enjoying Shea Ernshaw’s adult titles and Habits of the Sea is my favorite. If you love a character who has to pick between past and future, between isolation and community and feels stuck in this liminal space, this is for you. Keep reading this book review of Habits of the Sea for my full thoughts.
Summary
The night Clay Lockhart’s wife dies, a violent storm tears their home—and the eight hectares of land beneath it—away from the Scottish coast, sending it adrift into the Atlantic. Thirty years later, twelve-year-old Ellie Mills discovers the fabled floating island off the coast of Nova Scotia and finds Clay still living in the weatherworn farmhouse perched on its highest hill.
When the island vanishes overnight, Ellie is left questioning whether it ever existed at all. But decades later, now in her thirties, the island resurfaces—and Ellie returns, determined to uncover the truth. What she finds is even Clay hasn’t aged a single day.
Faced with the impossible, Ellie learns that some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved—and that a life shaped by wonder may hold more promise than one bound by certainty.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Habits of the Sea is a book I had to read right now. It’s one I don’t think I’d have understood before. A book about longing, about the curiosity we can never turn off, and about being trapped between our present and our future. About the idea of giving up what we have with that tinge of restlessness or to risk it all for the future. About the experiences that haunt us, that change us, that induce wanting and nostalgia. Habits of the Sea is compelling even as it becomes a book about internal growth and choosing who, and what, we want to be. Do we pursue what is expected, comfortable, or safe versus risking it all for the unknown?
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At the same time, it also becomes a story about our safe spaces, about keeping ourselves separate, and when it’s time to return. There’s a bit of a look at the future, at what humanity might hold, and the shadows within, but it remains a story focused on these lives, these individuals, the choices and the love they bear. What happens when we find out our choices aren’t our own? How do we make sense of the roads less traveled and the lives we will never lead? Find Habits of the Sea on Goodreads, Storygraph, Bookshop. org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.