What the Waves Know — Tamara Valentine

What the Waves Know is an enchanting heartrending exploration of love, loss and mental illness through a child's eyes - a must read.

In the graceful narrative tradition of Sue Monk Kidd and Beth Hoffman comes an exquisite debut novel about a young woman's quest to reclaim herself- and the voice she left behind- on the gritty New England island where she lost both.

Nineteen miles off the rocky Rhode Island coast lies the tiny isle of Tillings and the memory of Izabella Rae Haywood's sixth birthday- when her universe reeled sharply off course. Tucked deep in her pocket, Iz carries a small amber sea-stone and the secret of the evening her father disappeared- taking her words with him.

Eight years later in the autumn of 1974, Iz's mother is through with social workers, psychiatrists, and her daughter's silence. In one last attempt to return Iz's voice, the pair board the ferry back to Tillings in hopes that confronting the past will help Izabella heal herself and begin to piece together the splintered memories of the day her words ran dry.

But heartbreak is a difficult puzzle to solve- and truth is elusive where magic and madness collide. When the residents of Tillings greet them with a standoffish welcome it becomes clear that they know something about Izabella's dreamer of a father that she does not.

Now, as the island's annual Yemayá festival prepares to celebrate the ties that bind mothers to children, lovers to each other, and human kind to the sea, Izabella must unravel the tangled threads of her own story and reclaim a voice gone silent... or risk losing herself- and any chance she may have for a future- to the past.