An intricate story of quiet threats and the families who endure them
Helen Montague Foster’s Tidal Overlook, sequel to Lost Graces, opens with a jolt of realism that sets your teeth on edge. A winter drive to a family cabin turns unexpectedly tense when Nancy Thomas, a psychiatrist, discovers an injured man in a field and loses sight of her young foster daughter Soolie.
The scene unfolds the way real crises often do—without warning, without clarity, and without time to understand what it means. It’s a strong opening, guided by Foster’s steady attention to how danger actually enters a life: quietly, then all at once.
There are more questions than answers: Nancy’s husband, Mack, is injured; camouflaged men escort the family away from the nearby conference compound, Wyding Overlook; and no one quite knows what becomes of the man in the field. Later, Nancy agrees to treat Elgin Millan, a well-known writer whose guarded manner and flickers of paranoia mirror the secrecy surrounding the retreat. Only, what first appears to be a psychological thriller shifts into a more interior narrative about caregiving, trauma, and the complicated responsibilities that come with loving a child who has already endured too much.
Nancy is a restrained narrator, someone trained to analyze rather than react, and the story adopts the same rhythm. Events stretch out over weeks. Tension ebbs instead of tightens. The danger surrounding Wyding Overlook—the stolen gun Soolie brings home, the possible conspiracy linked to the writer Elgin Millan—stays present, yet is always held at a slight distance by Nancy’s instinct to understand before she allows herself to fear. (Danger, for her, is something to be interpreted first.)
The novel is strongest when it stays close to Nancy’s immediate world—especially her relationship with Soolie. Foster writes the foster-care system with clear-eyed attention: the miscommunications, the rushed judgments, the heartbreaking way traumatized children are asked to trust adults who have not yet proven trustworthy. Nancy’s attempts to understand Soolie—clinically, then slowly, more personally, despite her fear of getting attached—give the book its emotional spine. Their dynamic is complicated, tender, and often fraught, and Foster handles it with care and honesty.
The novel also widens its lens to the family surrounding them: Nancy’s adult children, who hover at the edges of her decisions, and the ones Soolie carries with her—her siblings, now separated into different foster homes; her deceased mother; and the father who cannot decide whether to let go.
There is strain, too, on Nancy’s marriage with Mack—the husband she adores but who is changing. No marriage is untouched by health struggles or legal uncertainty, particularly when the couple serves as foster parents. The author renders their relationship with the same steadiness she brings to the rest of the novel: an older marriage still grounded in love but altered by the pressures that accumulate around it.
Within her office walls, the therapy sessions between Nancy and Elgin are also engaging, full of allegory and quiet wordplay. Elgin is an unsettling figure—intelligent, self-protective, and difficult to read—and their early conversations reveal more than either intends. These scenes stand well on their own, though Nancy’s later intensity surrounding his disappearance feels sudden, especially given how limited their relationship has been. Her emotional involvement outpaces what the novel has shown, creating a slight disconnect between character development and plot.
Despite the way threats and conspiracies weave their way into Nancy’s life, they remain largely abstract—more atmospheric than immediate—and the hints of a broader conspiracy feel familiar rather than surprising. Foster’s realism, her willingness to show that life rarely unfolds neatly or at the pace we expect from suspense fiction, lends the book authenticity but also smothers its narrative momentum at times.
Still, Tidal Overlook succeeds on its own terms as a portrait of caregiving under strain. Foster captures how fear settles into a family and how the work of protecting a child is always uncertain, always imperfect, yet defined by love. Nancy’s voice, shaped by years of clinical training, keeps the novel rooted in psychological realism, guiding the reader through a world where understanding often matters more than certainty.
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