Book Review :: Blue Water

I love when a book surprises you. Such was the case for me and A. Manette Ansay’s Blue Water. I picked it up on a $1 rack at my local book store. I had read Ansay’s Vinegar Hill and really enjoyed it. So I thought, “What the heck?” Not knowing a thing about it, I bought it.

Blue Water is much the same premise as a read from earlier this year The Weight of Heaven. Parents lose a young child to tragic circumstances and embark on a new journey to try to recover themselves and their marriage.

In Blue Water, Meg and Rex Van Dorn lose their 6 year old son, Evan, in a car accident. Evan was born after many years of fertility treatments as well as eventually giving up on the possibility of a child. The car that hit Meg that morning as she was taking Evan to school was driven by Cindy Ann Kreisler – a woman admittedly hung-over and still near the DUI limit two hours after the accident, when a cop finally thought to test her.

Cindy Ann was also Meg’s best friend in high school. And at that time, she entrusted Meg with a secret that she never told anyone else.

To escape the small Wisconsin town, the inevitable “run ins” with their son’s killer and being seen as the poor couple who lost their son, Meg and Rex find renters for their home, buy a boat and set sail for the Caribbean, or wherever else the boat might take them. Along the way they discover that they are dealing with the loss of their son very differently.

When Meg and Rex receive a wedding invitation from Meg’s brother who is about to marry Cindy Ann’s sister, Meg takes the opportunity to return home to test her own strength and growth.

In the end Blue Water is about loss and redemption, finding a way to forgive others and the healing that can take place when you help someone else find their ability to forgive. While not every string is tied perfectly in the end, what starts out dark and could easily be as heavy as The Weight of Heaven, actually ends with the resilience of hope.