Two If By Sea
Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Audio Published by: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: March 15, 2016
Overview
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean, an epic story of courage and devotion that spans three continents and the entire map of the human heart.
Just hours after his wife and her entire family perish in the Christmas Eve tsunami in Brisbane, American expat and former police officer Frank Mercy goes out to join his volunteer rescue unit and pulls a little boy from a submerged car, saving the child’s life with only seconds to spare. In that moment, Frank’s own life is transformed. Not quite knowing why, Frank sidesteps the law, when, instead of turning Ian over to the Red Cross, he takes the boy home to the Midwestern farm where he grew up. Not long into their journey, Frank begins to believe that Ian has an extraordinary, impossible telepathic gift; but his only wish is to protect the deeply frightened child. As Frank struggles to start over, training horses as his father and grandfather did before him, he meets Claudia, a champion equestrian and someone with whom he can share his life—and his fears for Ian. Both of them know that it will be impossible to keep Ian’s gift a secret forever. Already, ominous coincidences have put Frank’s police instincts on high alert, as strangers trespass the quiet life at the family farm.
The fight to keep Ian safe from a sinister group who want him back takes readers from the ravaged shores of Brisbane to the middle of America to a quaint English village. Even as Frank and Claudia dare to hope for new love, it becomes clear that they can never let Ian go, no matter what the cost. A suspenseful novel on a grand scale, Two If by Sea is about the best and worst in people, and the possibility of heroism and even magic in ordinary life.
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Praise
“Mitchard returns with another heartbreaker.”
—Library Journal
“Gripping. … Mitchard deftly weaves together domestic drama with taut suspense as she builds to a heart-stopping climax.”
—Booklist
“A troubled protagonist, beset by disaster and malefaction, is touched by magic.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Mitchard’s latest novel explores the fascinating question of those who have extraordinary gifts, what responsibility comes with those gifts, and where the line of morality falls between those poles. A thoughtful, sweeping read.”
—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Time
“This book will open your mind and heart in equal measure.”
—Paula McClain, author, The Paris Wife
“With grand landscapes, deep emotions, harrowing adventure and genuine characters who aren’t characters at all but people about whom we come to care so very much, Two if by Sea is a powerful blockbuster of the first order. There is magic here, both in terms of the vast story told, and in Ms. Mitchard’s always-beautiful writing. This is a riveting book, a gift to readers everywhere who want to sink into a novel of history, and love, and grace, and magic.”
—Bret Lott, New York Times bestselling author of Jewel
“Jacquelyn Mitchard has done it again. TWO IF BY SEA is a riveting story of loss, love and redemption, driven by the tension between the worst of us and the best of us. Both supernatural and reality-bound, this tantalizing thriller won’t let you go. Kudos to Mitchard for such an insightful and compelling read.”
—B A Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of The Art Forger
“A day after losing his wife and unborn child in a tsunami in Australia, American Frank Mercy rescues a mysterious young boy from the floodwaters. What happens next offers Mercy the opportunity to heal his new wounds while opening old ones. This sprawling family saga is a lot of things – a finely drawn character study, a transcontinental thriller, a portrait of grief and loss – but, most importantly, it is a very, very good book. Although it brings to mind the work of writers like Gail Godwin and Richard Flanagan, this is the kind of novel that only Jacquelyn Mitchard can write: a literary page-turner that is as propulsive as it resonant, as hard to define as it is to put down.”
—Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy
