Heather Frese reintroduces the inspiring friendship of the young women from her engaging debut, The Baddest Girl on the Planet, in the equally charming The Saddest Girl on the Beach, as the friends bravely face life-altering challenges together.
Her mood as gray as the North Carolina sky during the off-season, 19-year-old Charlotte arrives at her best friend's family inn seeking peace after her father's recent death. Friends since childhood, Charlotte and Evie have an easy rapport, referring to each other as "my anchor." Their witty repartee lends a light tone to their reunion on the Outer Banks, in spite of their situations: Charlotte is secretly self-harming, finding that the "bite of physical pain" distracts her from grief, while Evie is struggling with how to respond to an unplanned pregnancy. Neither circumstance is easily resolved, but in Charlotte's months at the Pamlico Inn, the young women rely on their friendship to see them through their crises.
Evie's family, including wise and crusty Aunt Fay, are endearing supporting characters, and the Cape Hatteras setting is a vivid presence. Charlotte exchanges text messages composed of metaphorically resonant quotations from a book called How to Read a North Carolina Beach with Michael, another childhood friend, who is visiting the inn to study ocean currents. Their budding romance suggests that Charlotte might heal from her grief. In a novel replete with love and understanding, even an imminent hurricane feels like a manageable threat, and a climax that sees "the ocean churned a deep gray green" resolves with both young women finding peace in hard-won and hopeful choices. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.