New Book Alert: On The Backs of Waves by Chiara Kelly; An Imperfect, but Engulfing Storm of a Psychological Thriller About Child Abduction and Obsession Dead Ahead

New Book Alert: On The Backs of Waves by Chiara Kelly; An Imperfect, But Engulfing Storm of A Psychological Thriller About Child Abduction and Obsession Dead Ahead

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: On The Backs of Waves by Chiara Kelly has the ingredients of a great summer read: tight suspenseful plot, interesting but not too involved characterization, wealthy upper middle class family caught up in some sort of thriller situation involving kidnapping and mysterious deaths, an unbalanced antagonist with a tragic past, and water imagery lots of water imagery. Like the book expects to be read by a swimming pool or a boat and is providing a visual aid.


The plot begins right after a heinous crime has occurred in which two young children, Luly (short for Tallulah) and Zack Reed have gone missing from their family's marina side home. They went on a sailing trip with their nanny, Laurel Macintosh, their aunt, Sally Conklin and Virgil Reyes, Laurel's friend from the nearby sailing club, and did not return on the scheduled date. Their parents, Miles and Moriah are practically frantic. They put the police, FBI, and Coast Guard on their trail and go over any possible leads.

Their strongest lead is Laurel since she was an expert sailor and often gave the kids lessons. She couldn't have abducted the kids could she? After all, she said that she dreamed of having kids of her own and had been somewhat vague about her past, but she absolutely doted on Zack and Luly. But kidnapping? Sure she once jokingly said that if something happened to Miles and Moriah, she would love to take them in but surely she could not have done it, could she? It's not too long before Laurel becomes Suspect #1.

The rest of the book flashes back to the friction in Miles and Moriah's marriage, their hiring of Laurel, and her obsessive love for the children, her anguished past that led her to make her unfortunate decisions.


On The Backs of Waves is one of those books that delights in giving us multiple first person narratives to give us different views of the same events. That particularly helps with the characterization of Laurel. When Miles and Moriah first meet her serving as a nanny to a nearby family, she seems absolutely perfect. She is great with kids, has a very amiable personality, and it isn't too long before the Reed children hang out with their new neighbors and their nanny and the Reeds wish that she could be their nanny Instead. Once we get into Laurel's head, we learn that while her love for children is never in doubt, her obsessive preoccupation with her biological clock is a telltale sign that all is not well with this woman.


To be fair Kelly is brilliant in writing her characters, most notably Laurel. Certainly The Reeds are the definite victims. It's easy to feel for an anguished couple worried about their babies and Kelly makes their anxiety real and almost insurmountable. Zack and Luly are also very realistic. They have charming character traits like Luly's fascination with the book, Pippi Longstocking and Zack's love of Adventure Time, complete with pet rats named Finn and Jake. The kids go from loving Laurel and thinking of her as a second mother to becoming terrified of her and the situation that she puts them in. The actual abduction is suspenseful and chilling, particularly when Laurel uses some psychological mindgames to win the kids over to her side.


Laurel is a very captivating character. The Reader alternates between liking and understanding her to loathing her. On the one hand, she is masterful and manipulative to get others to side with her such as getting Virgil to go along with her extremely dangerous and highly illegal schemes. Then we see the lost soul that she is, particularly in the heartbreaking flashback when she suffered a near fatal miscarriage and a loveless relationship with an awful man. By the end of the book, we are as uncertain as the characters whether Laurel was a terrible manipulative person who deserves punishment or a sad woman who wanted what she couldn't have at any cost.


There is also plenty of water imagery which adds to the near eascapism in summer reading. Laurel takes the kids sailing and there are plenty of delightful moments of smooth seas and scenic lakefronts. There is also tension when Laurel and the kid's sail to another country as the waters become rougher and more foreboding. The water becomes almost a symbol of the tension between Laurel and The Reeds, calm and idyllic when Laurel acts like the perfect nanny, a Mary Poppins of the 21st century, then storm ridden and catastrophic the more dangerous her motives and actions become.


There are some issues in this book that keep it from being a perfect storm of reading. It stretches credibility a bit that Miles and Moriah would not do a better job of checking for references, beyond her last job. In this day of social media, that is a huge dangling plot hole.
Another is Miles's cyber affair with a former colleague. It is an unnecessary development that ends up abruptly. It seems to serve no purpose, but as a red herring.


I would hardly call On The Backs of Waves smooth sailing, but there are no rough waters ahead. Instead, I will say be prepared for fair but at times choppy waters.