She Treads Softly: Saltwater

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Saltwater

Saltwater by Katy Hays
3/25/25; 336 pages
Random House

Saltwater by Katy Hays is a highly recommended family drama/thriller following the wealthy Lingate family on the island of Capri.

The Lingate family returns every year to the island of Capri. In 1992, playwright Sarah Lingate, wife of Richard, the youngest heir to the Lingate oil fortune, is found dead below the cliffs. She left behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Her death was officially ruled an accident but there are questions about this.

Now 30 year later, the Lingates are returning to Capri yet again. Helen has felt controlled and isolated by her family for years. Now, at thirty-three-years-old she has had enough. Helen along with Lorna Moreno, her friend and family assistant, is plotting her escape from her family's clutches. The plan involves an anonymous package that contains the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she drowned, reminding everyone of Sarah's death and threatening to expose secrets. But then Lorna disappears...

The atmospheric plot is tense, mysterious and secretive right from the start. The island is used to create a lock-room mystery which allows suspense to build and hidden secrets to be revealed. Capri is beautifully described and the setting becomes essential to the plot. There are plenty of hidden secrets and twists along the way in this study of family, wealth, and consequences. The plot does build slowly until the end, which will require some dedication to push through to the action.

The narrative mainly unfolds between the point-of-view of Helen and Lorna, with additional information from Sarah's story leading up to her death in 1992. Be suspicious of everyone and everything. Keep in mind that ultimately none of the characters are appealing or likable.

Saltwater is a good choice for those who enjoy novels populated by rich-people-behaving-badly. Thanks to Random House for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.