Inland

Rosenfield’s second book, after 2012’s Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone, opens with a woman’s (presumed) drowning and sets up persistent questions: Is the woman an exile from the sea, or is she delusional? Has she returned “home” or killed herself? Her daughter, Callie Morgan, takes over the narration thereafter, and Callie’s description of her mother being “swallowed” by the sea maintains the blurring of madness and the ocean. Callie suffers from lung disease, and she gives a melancholy and absorbing account of the debilitating, isolating reality of childhood illness. Not coincidentally, during this period Callie and her father live far from the coast where Callie was born. The lure of intellectual challenge and cold, hard cash finally persuade Callie’s father to take a job on the coast again, and suddenly Callie becomes healthy, pretty, and sociable. Plot and romance kick in, too, and as Callie tries to unlock her family history, Rosenfield resists spelling out anything definitively. Readers catch glimpses of mermaids, selkies, sirens, and mental illness—any of which might be a red herring or the real thing. Ages 14–up. Agent: Yfat Reiss Gendel, Foundry Literary + Media. (June)