RACING WITH THE TIDE

A young woman returns to her hometown in order to rebuild her life in this romance.

Clemmie Castlebrook left Hilton Head Island at the age of 17, eloping with her soon-to-be husband, Jimmy. Now, nine years later, she returns to the coastal South Carolina community a widow. She doesn’t have many connections left on the island—her mother and stepfather are dead—but at least she still has Mama Rae, an old friend and mentor who lives by herself in the woods. Staying at the local hotel, Clemmie finds a job listing in the newspaper and accepts an offer from the strange Max Palmer even though she isn’t sure what the work will entail. She soon discovers that the job mostly involves dinner meetings she attends with Palmer, leaving her plenty of time off. But Clemmie has trouble enjoying it due to the anxieties resurfacing from her past, including the grief she feels for her husband and parents and her time in a psychiatric facility. When she meets a kind man named Clay Singleton, it seems as though she may have a chance of starting over. But the mystery of her employer—not to mention the increasingly odd behavior of Mama Rae—could stand in the way of finding the peace she desperately seeks. Shelburne’s prose is smooth and conversational, mixing the beach scenery with Clemmie’s internal monologue: “I breathed in a lovely dose of salty sea air and descended the steps. Then, tossing my flip-flops behind the bottom step, I began walking in the direction of the Hyatt Hotel. Doctor Fitzpatrick, my former shrink, had cautioned me not to allow myself to slip into denial about my past.” The book manages to keep the tension high without disturbing the generally appealing atmosphere, providing a bed of turmoil from which Clemmie’s new relationship can grow. The portrayal of Mama Rae—a Black woman who speaks in a heavy dialect and has the whiff of Voodoo about her—is somewhat problematic, though the tale’s other Black characters are rendered more realistically. Overall, this is a readable, low-stakes story with a pleasant blend of mystery, romance, and healing.

An imperfect but engaging tale of new love and second chances.