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Review: Between the Sound and the Sea, by Amanda Cox

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Between the Sound and the Sea, by Amanda Cox (Revell, 2024)

Ostracized by their small town, her parents have sold the family home and moved south. Her father and brother haven’t spoken in years. And social pressure is about to kill her event planning business.

Josephine (Joey) needs distance—and maybe perspective. When she applies for a contract to restore an old lighthouse on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, it’s another battle for acceptance—a woman project manager in this island town? Working on a lighthouse the locals claim is haunted?

Walt, the property owner, is an 80-plus-year-old man compelled to right a past wrong. His adult grandson, Finn, is afraid the old man is unstable. Joey soon learns restoring their relationship comes with the building project. And where will she find her own purpose now? Is this a temporary break from Tennessee, or is it truly time to start over?

This is my second Amanda Cox book (first was The Bitter End Birding Society), and I love her occasionally-lyrical prose and setting descriptions. These characters engaged my imagination, and I enjoyed watching the various relationships shift and grow. And what’s not to love about a crumbling lighthouse stocked with secrets?

Between the Sound and the Sea is a 2025 Christy Award Winner. As the title implies, this is a novel of betweens. The “sound” is a body of water separated from the sea by a narrow, grassy sand dune, trying to hold its place. Joey, Finn, and Walt are much the same in the beginning.

It’s also a novel of second chances and gentle romance. The story’s set in 2007, but history buffs will appreciate the references to the early 1940s.

Amanda Cox’s website tagline describes her fiction as “stories of hope, healing, and home.” For more about the author and her work, or to get a free short story prequel to her first novel, visit amandacoxwrites.com. The website also offers free discussion guides for her books, and if you go to amandacoxwrites.com/books-2/between-the-sound-and-sea you can read an excerpt and find resources to enrich your understanding of the Outer Banks, its history and its lighthouses.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: The Bitter End Birding Society, by Amanda Cox

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Book cover in pale pink and yellow with birds perching on a delicate tree branch. Text: The Bitter End Birding Society: a novel, by Amanda Cox

The Bitter End Birding Society, by Amanda Cox (Revell, 2025)

“A forbidden romance, a fractured family, and one woman’s journey to piece it all together.” [from the back cover]

Desperate for a quiet space to recover from a traumatic experience, kindergarten teacher Ana heads to the Tennessee mountains to spend the summer with her great-aunt. Her hopes of getting to know Aunt Cora vanish when she discovers the invitation was actually a request for house-sitting while Cora travels with a friend.

Woven between the chapters of Ana’s experiences with the residents in the old mountain town of Bitter End are chapters of her grandmother’s story. That’s where the forbidden romance and fractured family come in.

This is an immersive, faith-filled novel with relatable (and sometimes quirky) characters who struggle to make sense of the hurts they carry. They stayed with me when I wasn’t reading.

The birding society doesn’t come in until almost halfway through the book, but birders will appreciate the group’s hikes and sightings. This is a group started by a local resident named Marilyn, who Ana’s aunt Cora had warned her to avoid. Naturally, Ana finds herself joining the group of misfits Marilyn has collected—and finds these times in nature to be part of the healing process she’s longed for.

I’ll say that one aspect of the grandmother’s plot bothered me (no spoilers!), but that doesn’t keep me from recommending the book to anyone who wants a reflective, heartfelt, and ultimately feel-good story. Especially to anyone who doesn’t feel like they’re “enough” or like they deserve a second chance.

Favourite line:

But now the spaces between who she was and who she’d like to be looked like opportunities for growth and grace instead of evidence of failure. [p. 301]

The Bitter End Birding Society is Christy-Award-winning author Amanda Cox’s fifth book. Her website tagline describes her fiction as “stories of hope, healing, and home.” For more about the author and her work, or to get a free short story prequel to her first novel, visit amandacoxwrites.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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