FRACTURED TIDE by Leslie Lutz – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

FRACTURED TIDE by Leslie Lutz – ReviewFractured Tide by Leslie Lutz
Published by Blink on May 5 2020
Genres: Young adult, Science fiction, Thriller
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
four-half-stars

The nitty-gritty: Shipwrecks, sea monsters, and an engaging bunch of characters come together in this fantastic YA debut, full of thrills and plenty of mystery.

Hi Dad,

I’m going to write you until this pencil wears out. Until all of me wears out. I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not anymore, but these words, they feel real. Solid. And there’s a chance my letter to you will wash up on the right shore.

Wow, this book was so much fun! I really needed a fast-paced “escape” book and Fractured Tide delivered. This is Leslie Lutz’s debut novel and I was impressed by how well written it was. Lutz structures her book as journal entries, written by main character Sia to her father, who is in jail for manslaughter. I loved this format for several reasons, but mostly because it added an extra layer of depth and emotion to what could have been a run-of-the-mill survival story. The publisher compares this book to Lost and they aren’t wrong, so if you love action/adventure stories with a strong supernatural/science fiction/mystery mash-up, you’re going to love this.

Sia and her mother are both experienced divers and run a business called Blue Dolphin Scuba Charters off the coast of Florida. When the story begins, they are taking a group of paying customers to the site of a sunken ship, ten miles off the coast. Everything about the dive seems normal at first, until bad luck starts to strike. First, the diver Sia is accompanying suddenly disappears, then is later found dead. When her mother decides to call a nearby charter ship in to help with the dead body, both ships experience mechanical failure, and every cell phone on board fails as well. Sia’s mother takes charge and is working on a rescue plan, when out of nowhere the ships are attacked by a giant, squid-like creature, who ends up sinking both ships and killing most of the people on board.

Sia wakes up later on a beach, parched, sunburnt and alone. Luckily she isn’t the only survivor, as she soon runs into her little brother Felix as well as two teens from the second charter ship, Ben and Steph. With no food and very little water, the four set out to explore the island and figure out a plan of action. But Sia senses something isn’t quite right. A mysterious man with a gun is living in the palm trees in the center of the island and insists the year is 1943 and that the island is actually in the South Pacific.`And lurking in the ocean, the creature responsible for the shipwreck is waiting for them. With no way of getting home, the four survivors must use all their wits to stay alive. 

I’m not going to say much more about the plot because it’s more fun to figure things out for yourself. Lutz does a great job of keeping the mystery going, dropping ominous hints throughout the story that were just tantalizing enough to keep me turning the pages as fast as I could. There are several things going on. First, you have the killer sea creature who is only vaguely described—a detail that I actually liked. Sia and her friends know it’s coming by the green luminescent glow it gives off just before it appears. Then you have the mystery of Graham, the man on the island who claims to have been in the middle of a war when his ship was capsized. But the biggest mystery is the island itself. Where exactly are they? Sia knows the Florida Keys like the back of her hand, but there shouldn’t be an island here at all. Why is she experiencing weird visions and dreams of things that haven’t happened? And what is the sinkhole in the middle of the island and how does it connect to everything else? Lutz draws all these mysteries out until the very end and does a great job of keeping the suspense at a very high level.

I also loved all the scary and creepy moments in this story. Some of my favorite scenes were the ones where the characters are scuba diving and encounter all kinds of dangers in the ocean. Lutz herself is a diver, and her experience shows in how she describes the equipment, the dangers of diving, and the exhilaration of leaving land behind and sinking into the depths of the ocean. Sia feels at peace in the water, as if she were born to dive, but even she has some frightening moments in this story. There were so many tense scenes underwater! I personally love the ocean, as long as I can view it from solid ground, but I’ve always been terrified of the ocean itself, and reading Fractured Tide certainly didn’t help me overcome those fears!

The actual plot of the story is solid and makes for a fantastic read by itself, but Lutz takes it a step further and adds an emotional layer to her story by using Sia’s journal to her father as a way of deepening the characterizations of Sia and her family. There’s an almost confessional quality to her journal entries as she tries to come to terms with her father being in prison, her childhood growing up in near poverty, and her complicated relationship with her mother. Sia reminisces about her grandmother—Yiayia—who instilled a deep love of the ocean in Sia when she was just a young girl. Sia’s family is of Greek ethnicity, and I loved her memories of listening to Yiayia talk about her own experiences diving for sponges in Greece. Yiayia also taught Sia how to hold her breath underwater for long periods of time, something that comes in handy during her stay on the island. I also want to point out that telling the story in first person was a great way to convey the horrors of being stranded on a deserted island without food or water. Sia’s descriptions of her thirst made me so uncomfortable that my own throat became parched while I was reading!

Some of the action at the end—and the way the problems on the island are resolved—was a bit chaotic and confusing, but it didn’t really affect my overall enjoyment. Lutz does some interesting things in the final chapters that will give readers a lot of food for thought. I personally enjoy it when authors don’t tie everything up at the end in a nice, neat bow, because then my own imagination is free to wander a bit. Readers looking for an exciting mystery that’s a cut above the usual YA fare won’t want to miss this book.

Big thanks to the publisher and Kaye Publicity for supplying a review copy.

Posted May 4, 2020 by Tammy in 4 1/2 stars, Reviews / 36 Comments

Divider

36 responses to “FRACTURED TIDE by Leslie Lutz – Review”

  2. verushka

    I like the addition of the journal entries — it’s such an extreme situation, the entries are a great way to ground everything. And i agree with Maddalena above, that journal entry immediately tells use how desperate her situation is. and how much she needs to write.

    Reply
  6. todd

    I know what you mean about needing a fast-paced escape book. I sometimes feel similarly. I’ll know I just want to get lost in a great story, something not too deep that doesn’t take too much thought, but moves along easily and just feels right. Sometimes I want it to be light and perhaps a bit comedic. Other times I’m ok with a fast-paced action or mystery. And I don’t always know which books will satisfay before trying them, but I often know a short way in it’s time to put it down and look again, have to find that book, just the right book, the one to let me escape, if only for a short while. Glad this one worked so well for you! 🙂

    Reply
    • Tammy

      I agree, it depends on my mood too, as to what type of book will work at any particular time:-)

      Reply
  7. Annie Deo

    this sounds really good! I love the premise of this (YA take on Lost, ooh), but unfortunately the journal entry format puts me off a bit, I’m not really into that, aggh. still, I didn’t read Illuminae til it was over because I thought I wouldn’t enjoy its non-traditional narrative and ended up loving it, so maybe I’ll give this a go anyway

    Reply
    • Tammy

      Honestly, it doesn’t read like a journal, it’s very much a regular prose story. She is talking to her dad at some points, but otherwise you wouldn’t know.

      Reply
  8. sjhigbee

    I love the sound of this one – to the extent that I have now dashed across to NG and requested it:)). Thank you for a cracking review, Tammy – once again, you have pointed me in the direction of a really promising-sounding book!

    Reply
  9. Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

    I’m always looking for a good thriller, and a sci-fi young adult one at that! I haven’t even heard of this, but it sounds amazing! Plus you gave it such high praise, I need to put this one on the list!

    Reply
    • Tammy

      The excerpt is a good representation of the writing and Sia’s voice, I thought it worked really well.

      Reply
    • Tammy

      It’s definitely a great book when you’re in the mood for scary/mystery stories:-)

      Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.