I may be the only person who read this book for all I know, but I loved it.

Twelve-year-old Theo is on a trip to Nantucket Island with her dad and annoying TV star stepmom. But it’s not so bad; she loves the island, she makes friends with island-boy Kip. But mysterious things start happening as well. Theo receives a strange but beautiful necklace of shells and black stone as a welcoming gift. She starts to see things in the waves. She begins to wonder if Kip’s Gram isn’t just senile, if perhaps her weird mutterings mean something dire. She begins to investigate the ancient lore of the island and her own connection to it.

I re-read this book many many times. I loved the Island, which impacts the book so strongly it almost feels like a character itself. I loved Theo. I loved Kip and Theo, together. And of course I loved the hidden magical stuff that is slowly revealed over the course of the story. There’s a reason all these books with kid protagonists who discover their own secret heritage are so successful, I think. Lots of us readers wanted (want!) to believe we are special too, that maybe we inherited some fabulous magical power, even if it was scary and got us into adventures.