AT THE WATER’S EDGE by Sara Gruen

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

The promise of a poignant first scene of a Scottish mother’s unendurable grief over the loss of her baby and soldier husband gives way to an unconvincing morality tale. Philadelphia socialites Maddie, her alcoholic husband Ellis, and his man-crush Hank escape military service and parental scrutiny to Scotland to hunt for the Loch Ness monster in the latter stages of WW2. Maddie learns her marriage is a sham, and repents her high-society, idle-rich foibles by turning scullery maid and falling for the hunky Scottish inn-keeper, aided by a supernatural appearance of the grieving Scottish mother. WW2 plays a secondary role, making its appearances in air raids and news reports of late stage military actions and discoveries of the holocaust. Descriptions of lovely Scottish landscapes and Maddie’s fears as her husband’s true nature unfolds are well-written. At the end of the book, I was certain a better story was in here somewhere, even as I read of the brazenly convenient demise of Maddie’s bad egg husband Ellis.