The Swell - Allie Reynolds

 

"The waves are to die for.

Three years ago, passionate surfer Kenna Ward lost her two great loves—after her boyfriend drowned, she hung up her surfboard and swore off the water for good. But she is drawn back to the beach when her best friend, Mikki, announces her sudden engagement to a man Kenna has never met—a member of a tight-knit group of surfers. Kenna travels to a remote Australian beach, entering a dangerous world far from civilization world where the waves, weather, and tides are all that matter. Kenna is tempted back into the surf, and drawn into the dazzling group and the beach they call their own.

But this coastal paradise has a dark side, and members of the group begin to go missing. Kenna realizes that in order to protect Mikki and learn more about the surfers, she must become one of them…without becoming one of their victims. What follows is an adrenaline-fueled thriller packed with twists and turns, exploring the dangerous edge between passion and obsession."

What Worked for Me

This book really nailed the creepy vibes.  It was such a great contrast to have this basically paradise have a constant undercurrent of unease. The book is primarily from Kenna's POV, but we do get a brief chapter here and there from one of the other characters. These other chapters each seem to show a slightly new angle to something Kenna is concerned about.  However, these chapters don't serve to show that Kenna is completely wrong, and often further complicate the situation while posing more questions than answers - which was always great.  This is also an isolated setting with a pretty closed cast and those two tropes always bring certain creepy vibes on their own.

There is a great building of tension and danger throughout the read from multiple different directions. We have environmental danger from the isolated setting and wild ocean along with interpersonal danger that slowly develops over the course of the book.  The pacing is spot on and it is a slow, but steady build until it really ramps up at the end.

The actual reveals we get are excellent especially given the secretive nature of the group overall.  The premise of the book - Kenna meeting this group of people who are wary of outsiders and then being incorporated into the group - really lends directly to some explosive reveals.  Reynolds has so many different people and aspects to choose from as the story builds and I really think she used everything to her advantage.  This is an isolated, closed circle mystery in a more tropical locale which is a really fun contrast to the usual snowy or rainy settings we get a lot.  It reminded me a lot of Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins in that way. 

The setting was fantastic and Reynolds does a great job of really immersing the reader in the nature of this isolated beach.  I don't know much about surfing, but these characters all love it and we get a lot of surfing on page.  The way the surfing was entwined with their daily life on this beach really helped fill in some gaps in my knowledge because Reynolds was able to sprinkle in some details or background info in a more organic way. I loved the way Kenna was a bit of a fish out of water and was not used to the insects, animals, or weather in Australia so we have a natural way of building the setting around her.

What Didn't Work for Me

The multi-POV was a little odd.  As mentioned above, most of the chapters (I'd say around 90%) were from Kenna's POV.  The other chapters did help build some vibes and tension but also ended up taking me out of the flow of the read.  I get so settled into Kenna's POV since we get chapter after chapter of her but then when we get another characters, that flow gets broken.  I love multi-POV isolated mysteries but this was just too lopsided for the POV choices to really work for me. 

Reynolds spent so much time slowly ramping up the tension and danger but I think she should have pumped the brakes a little more at the end.  The pacing really picked up at the end and just kept accelerating more than I wanted.  We get so many reveals right at the end and so many "the answer is A ... just kidding, the answer is B .... no, wait, the answer is C" type of reveals. And when these sort of reveals come too quickly, it ends up feeling like my brain was just getting beat up a bit by the story. I thought the pacing was great until the last 15% or so. 

Overall, this was a really solid isolated, closed circle mystery.  Great setting, tension, and pacing right up until the end.  There were a couple of things that didn't entirely work for me, but they didn't take too much away from the read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC.  Publication date was June 14, 2022