Orca Monroe has lived her entire life on an island off the coast of Washington State with her lighthouse keeper father and has longed to visit the mysterious mainland, which she refers to as “the Otherworld.” But her father has told her the mainland is “full of danger and darkness” and that people have “thunderstorms” inside them. He also emphasizes that she doesn’t belong there.
Even so, she still desires to see it and now that she’s 18-years-old, she feels that it’s apropos that her transition to adulthood should include a visit to the mysterious mainland. When her father (who normally never leaves their island) says he has required business on the mainland she sees this as the perfect opportunity and begs him to take her. But he refuses, telling her to stay and tend to the lighthouse.
She agrees, because he’s right that someone has to do that. And there’s just the two of them.
As Orca goes about her daily routine, which includes walking along the beach with her dog, Lucius, she finds a backpack washed up on the shore and a cell phone inside. This leads to her first conversation with someone from “the Otherworld” (the satellite phone to the Coast Guard being used only for emergencies and off limits to her), which brings her into the lives of brothers Adam and Jack Stevenson. Adam is a pilot still missing after his sea plane crashed somewhere off the coast of Whidbey Island four days earlier and for whom Orca searches, while Jack is on the other end of the phone call.
For Jack — the only member of his family who believes Adam is still alive — Orca is a potential lifeline even as he (and the ruminations in Adam’s journal) provide her with insights into the outside world beyond what she’s heard from her father or read in his natural history books.
Orca found the pack and had her first conversation with Jack before her father left and could have told him about both, but chooses not to in part because she reasons that if she’s successful in finding Adam it’ll prove to her father that she has the strength to face the Otherworld.
Her searches prove unsuccessful, but one stormy night an injured Adam turns up at the door of the lighthouse and she tends to his wounds. Continuing poor weather keeps her father on the mainland longer than he intended and also keeps Jack from flying out to pick up Adam. During these days together Orca and Adam fall in love, but Adam, who is 10 years her senior, decides its best to give her up.
But after Adam has returned home, Jack, who is Orca’s age and has no idea of his brother’s feelings for her, takes it upon himself to “rescue” her from her island “prison” and show her the world she’s always dreamed about.
Orca’s travels to the brave new world of the mainland not only let her discover what lies beyond the shores of her island home and experience the complexities of both first love and sibling relationships, but also to learn something about her own family and what led her father to choose such an isolated lifestyle for the two of them.
The Otherworld is the third novel by Abbie Emmons. As with her previous two books, 100 Days of Sunlight and Tessa and Weston: The Best Christmas Ever, she writes in first person and the present tense, with alternating chapters giving us the viewpoints of Orca, Jack and Adam.
Unlike those other two books, which take place in the present day, The Otherworld is set in the summer of 1997.
In a launch party and book signing YouTube video she posted the day of the book’s release, Emmons said The Otherworld is the result of an idea that popped into her head one day several years ago — of a girl who lives in a lighthouse in the Pacific Northwest and who had never had communication with the outside world finding a cell phone washed up on the beach.
She added that she also really wanted to explore themes of isolation and complicated family relationships.
“One of my favorite things to write about,” she said.
In that same video she also said that her childhood desire to be a pilot is one reason she included an aviation aspect in the book.
She also said Adam was the most relatable character to write, but her favorite is Orca, because she can really sympathize with her. She’s also her favorite of all the female characters she’s written.
“She was fun to write and I like how she was kind of like this wild flower child, home schooled, just very much lives on her own terms,” Emmons said. “She’s cool; lot of fun to write.”
Orca is very self-assured and also intent on proving she can handle anything on her own. At one point Adam, on the phone with Jack, realizes that Orca has gone. At first he figures she must be up in the lantern room, tending to lighthouse duties. But a moment later, she comes in out of a torrential downpour, having been to the greenhouse to harvest some vegetables.
When Adam points out that it’s storming out, she says it had to be done.
The next day, she realizes they need more firewood and starts chopping some logs. Adam (who has a broken rib) protests that it’s a man’s job, but Orca won’t hear of it. She’d promised her father she would manage everything on her own and that’s what she’ll do.
In the YouTube video, Emmons said her favorite line from the book, which is on the back cover of the hardcover copy under the dust jacket, is “perhaps we are all butterflies and the world is our hurricane.”
She said that comes from philosophical thoughts Orca has about the butterfly effect, adding that it — the idea that one small action can create a ripple effect in the world, for good or bad — is a theme in the book.
“We never know how one little decision we make could greatly impact the world,” Emmons said. “So that’s kind of the concept. And towards the end of the book, Orca’s reflecting on some of the decisions that all of the characters have made that have led to different conflicts in the story and she’s wondering ‘which of us caused this conflict? Maybe we’re all butterflies and the world is our hurricane.’”
In addition to her own books, Emmons, who has a YouTube channel dedicated to the craft of writing, is working on what she describes an an “action adventure, urban fantasy” series with her sister, K. A. Emmons, with whom she co-hosts the “Kate and Abbie Show” podcast.
As with Emmons’ other two books, The Otherworld is an engaging read, well worth adding to your home library.
Copyright 2023 Patrick Keating.
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