Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Title: Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles #2)

Author: TJ Klune

Publisher: Tor Books 2024

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 416

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Quarter of a Century - 2024; Cover Lover - A Lighted Window

Where I Got It: Library

*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 headmaster 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.*

Honestly, I think that my expectations for this book were too high. The House in the Cerulean Sea was an absolutely amazing book. I loved every page. And then we waited years for the sequel. I think I was too excited and built this one up too much to truly enjoy it. In this book, we focus on Arthur’s history. I was intrigued about his mysterious past while reading the first book. This one just doesn’t seem to have enough content to actually fill out a 400 page book. I found the pacing to be very frustrating. Long stretches of the book could have been edited out as they do nothing to development characters or the plot. Really I wanted more and more from the relationships between Arthur, Linus, and the kiddos. A pretty big disappointment for me.

Next up on the TBR pile: