Special thanks to Tor and NetGalley for sending me an excerpt in exchange for an honest review.

“Children—especially these children—didn’t understand the concept of time. Why, just the day before, an amorphous green blob entered their bedroom at half past five in the morning, his squishy voice loud with glee, shouting that he’d accidentally squirted ink from his nose, something that he didn’t know he could do. ‘I didn’t shove a pen up there or anything. Why am I inking all over the place? Oh my goodness, do you think I’m becoming a man? Also, how do you get ink off the ceiling?’”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Anything written by T. J. Klune is an instant buy for me, and Somewhere Beyond the Sea is no exception. I am beyond excited for this book! Full of the same whimsical charm of The House in the Cerulean Sea, this excerpt was four chapters of heart-swelling emotion. These characters are just so compelling, and the way Klune writes is profound in its simplicity. It’s one of the things that pulled me into Wolfsong (my first read by Klune), and it’s a talent I haven’t found in any other author.

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Even in just a few chapters, Somewhere Beyond the Sea boasts the same humor and love that carried Cerulean. I have one single complaint: I desperately need more than an excerpt. I need this book now!

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T. J. Klune is expected to release on September 10, 2024.