Book Review: A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young
The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. As twins, they share a deep and unique connection, something that goes beyond intuition. James can genuinely feel what her brother feels. So when he’s killed in a seemingly tragic accident, she knows before her phone even rings that Johnny is gone. Now, truly alone for the first time in her life, she must return to the town of her childhood to get answers to the questions surrounding her brother’s death.
Arriving back in Six Rivers, California to settle Johnny’s affairs, James doesn’t intend to stick around long. She fled the claustrophobic logging town twenty years ago and it holds painful memories she doesn’t want to revisit. Yet she can’t shake the overwhelming feeling that there’s more to Johnny’s death than anyone wants to admit. The more James immerses herself in Johnny’s world, reconnecting with the place and people she left behind, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew everything about. Disentangling the mysteries of her brother’s life means unravelling the truths of her own past, but some secrets are supposed to stay buried forever.
That was the way of grief, I was realizing. It was a barrage of pain that was so unbearable that it made you numb. And then out of nowhere, something made you feel again and the cycle started over from the beginning.“
Adrienne Young has become one of my go-to authors for small town, mystery-fuelled magical realism novels. Not only are her stories exquisitely written and emotionally charged, but they’re always imbued with a deep sense of atmosphere that breathes out of the pages, immersing readers in a place that feels genuinely tangible. Whilst the author’s previous book, The Unmaking of June Farrow, revolved around alternate timelines and the powerful pulls of motherhood and marriage, A Sea of Unspoken Things has a quieter, more spectral theme, dealing with the unbreakable bond between siblings and the unshakable tether of first love.
The novel initially paints itself as a slow-burn mystery and it includes all the twists and turns you’d expect from a story with a suspicious death, a town full of long-buried secrets, people with deep-rooted resentments and a protagonist who’s at once an outsider and an integral part of the town’s tragic history. But the beauty of Young’s writing means that A Sea of Unspoken Things is a book with as many different layers as the town that features in it. Central to the mystery is James’ haunting connection to her brother and his paranormal presence lingers throughout the novel. Yet the ghostly element is never overplayed and, as with all of Young’s novels, the magical realism remains grounded.
There’s also a romantic thread to the story that draws you in as much as the mystery. James’ relationship with Micah, her first love and the boy she abandoned when she left for San Francisco, is an electric undercurrent that crackles throughout the novel. They might not have seen each other for twenty years but it’s clear from the moment they reconnect that neither of them has moved on. The level of quiet pining, of tender memories brought back to the surface, will make readers fall just as hard for this broken couple and their shared history.
Whatever the setting, whether it’s the North Carolina flower farm in June Farrow, the isolated Pacific Coast island in Spells For Forgetting, or the dense national forest location here, Young’s books are always linked to the wildness of the world we live in. She has such a deep grasp of the essential power of nature and our place in it; of standing in a remote, rural place, looking across the fields or out at the sea or up at the trees, and realising just how small you are in comparison. A Sea of Unspoken Things holds that simultaneous sense of wonder and fear that vast forest landscapes can inspire. It’s the perfect backdrop for this meditative story of grief and loss, of love and memory, of the meaning of home, whether that’s a place or people.
★★★★★
A Sea of Unspoken Things was published by Quercus on 7 January 2025
