"At the Water's Edge"

“At the Water’s Edge” by Sara Gruen

Published by Spiegel & Grau (Random House)
ARC from NetGalley – finished 3/2/15

4/5 Stars                             

At the height of WWII, young socialites leave their partying lifestyle in Philadelphia and head to Scotland in search of the Loch Ness monster.  Sounds odd, doesn’t it?  If I hadn’t known this was by the same author as “Water for Elephants” I don’t know that it would have peaked my interest.  But I greatly enjoyed that book so decided to give it a try.  I’m so glad I did – it was such a pleasurable book.  There is just so much more to this story - the search for the monster is really just a back story.  There is love and compassion with a couple pieces of evil built in.  The female characters are my favorite – strong with a soft side as well.  There are still signs of weakness and viewing the world through rose colored glasses, but don’t we all have that inside us?  The male characters are well developed as well, even though you may not like them all.  You have the confused drug addict, the humorous side kick, and the strong, heartbroken hero.  Woven together, they create a great story that I highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the ARC of this novel.