Where the Tide Lines Lead

Elio has one ambition for the summer: to enjoy his last few months on his family’s resort on a Spanish island before he is sent away to boarding school, doing teenage things and getting on with his painting. But there are other concerns on the island.  A spate of mysterious disappearances, all of them teenagers, all without explanation or evidence, has shaken the families involved and threatens the tourist economy the whole community depends on. Then one night Elio hears a strange song and watches a girl from his school walk into the sea, which parts to let her through before closing over her. No one believes him, except perhaps Sam, a British tourist whose twin sister is among the missing. Together they investigate, and find far more than they bargained for: a whole community living beneath the waves, where the missing teenagers have built a new life that looks, on the surface, idyllic.

This is a novel of two distinct parts, one above the sea and one below, and that split is both its strength and its weakness. The above water sections offer a recognisable coming of age story, with Elio negotiating friendship, family expectation and the economic anxieties rippling through the island as a result of the disappearances. The mystery elements work well here, with clues accumulating steadily to build real intrigue and links with past mysteries. Below the waves, the tone shifts into something closer to ecological fantasy, as the teenagers tend the ocean floor and confront the damage humans have done to it, while also wrestling with what they miss from home and the families they left behind.

There is a great deal going on, arguably too much for one novel to fully resolve, and the ending deliberately resists tidy closure in favour of something more open ended, about making peace with imperfect circumstances and real life. Pacy and inventive, if not entirely cohesive, this is a solid summer read for fans of contemporary fantasy with something on its mind.