The Edge of the Water

Edge of the Water (Edge of Nowhere series #2)  by Elizabeth George

In the preface, we find a girl who can’t/won’t speak who is abandoned by her parents, left to wander, scared of the water, dragging a suitcase along behind her.

Now skip to Providence Sound, Whidbey Island, Washington.  Jenn wants badly to leave the island and her meager existence, focusing on a soccer scholarship.  She meets Annie Taylor, grad student marine biologist, who rents a very dilapidated trailer from her father.  The two strike up a friendship, partly through the money Annie offers Jenn to assist her in tracking a famous black seal in the area, and partly because Jenn is drawn to Annie romantically.

Now skip to Becca, who has come to the island to escape her violent step-father, now out of jail.  Becca knows he is dangerous because she hears “whispers” from people’s minds.  She can’t read minds, exactly.  She has also changed her appearance, gaining a large amount of weight, changing her hair color and adding glasses.  This prompts Jenn to call her “fat broad,” both because of the weight, and because Jenn doesn’t think Becca is a good romantic fit for her friend Derric.

The characters, setting, and the seal are expertly intertwined in this mystery.  Even those cast in supporting roles are well-defined.  We care about every character in this novel, even the seal.  Teens act like teens.  Adults are not stupid.  Unusual in a teen novel for both sets of characters to be so well drawn.

While the mystery is well done, we did find the back-flips to Silla’s story annoying.  Good readers will, of course, sense the ending halfway through.

While this is the second in the series, it won’t take readers long to understand the back story.  Now when is the third?????

Great for 12 up