This is Kelsey Patterson with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I’m recommending The Water Keeper, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin. Continuing on his success from Send Down the Rain and The Mountain Between Us, The Water Keeper is Martin’s first story in a new series.
Murphy Shepherd is a man with many secrets. He lives alone on an island, tending the grounds of a church with no parishioners, and he's dedicated his life to rescuing those in peril. But as he mourns the loss of his mentor and friend, Murph himself may be more lost than he realizes.
When he pulls a beautiful woman named Summer out of Florida's Intracoastal Waterway, Murph's mission to lay his mentor to rest at the end of the world takes a dangerous turn. Drawn to Summer, and desperate to find her missing daughter, Murph is pulled deeper and deeper into the dark and dangerous world of modern-day slavery.
With help from some unexpected new friends, including a faithful Labrador he plucks from the ocean and an ex-convict named Clay, Murph must race against the clock to locate the girl before he is consumed by the secrets of his past—and the ghosts who tried to bury them.
Both a tender love story and a heartrending search for freedom, The Water Keeper has Martin’s trademark lyricism and poignant prose as its anchor. It such a beautiful, multilayered story. One minute, I’d be reading about the details of Murph’s backstory and in the next, I’d be navigating my way through these tense high-octane chase scenes. Add to that Martin’s skill at creating casts of characters that are flawed yet inherently likeable, and I couldn’t put it down.
Check out The Water Keeper and other captivating fiction like it at the Sioux City Public Library. For even more book recommendations, subscribe to our podcast, The First Fifty Pages, available on Google Play, Stitcher, and iTunes.
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