The Emerald Tide, by Davis Bunn (Kensington Books, 2022)

A lovely feel-good story with fantastic descriptions of the settings—both in California and Sicily.

A painting that could be a previously-unknown lost masterpiece pulls art history expert Derek Gaines out of his quiet life and back into places of prestige in the art world—places he left when his wife died.

Seeking to establish provenance of this unsigned work and prove his suspicions of the painter’s identity—and perhaps find more valuable art—Derek finds unlikely support from Kelly Reid, one of the VPs of a famous auction house. He’s a widower, she’s been burned by a cheating (now ex) husband, and in the thrill of the art chase they may yet find unexpected romance.

The art plot could have been written as a high-energy thriller, which would also have been good, but I enjoyed it this way as a safe and intriguing read. The Miramar Bay series is one place I turn for gentle, non-scary tales with happy endings. Sometimes that’s what we need.

The Emerald Tide is book 6 in the Miramar Bay series of standalone novels. Readers following the series in order will recognize occasional recurring characters in peripheral roles but each story is self-contained with different characters in the major roles.

Davis Bunn is a prolific and award-winning writer whose work spans multiple genres in Christian and clean mainstream fiction. The Miramar Bay books are clean reads without overt faith threads. To learn about the author and his work, visit his Goodreads page.

[Review copy from the public library via Hoopla Digital.]