Paradise Coast

A community’s decades-old feud comes to a head in this savvy thriller from Young (In Nightfall). Teen Noa finds comfort in running the Surf Shack on Cape Hope with her father. Following her mother’s death and her brother’s disappearance, the family business feels like the only thing she has left. But the Collective, influential Cape Hope residents, seems intent on slowly forcing the establishment out of business. Meanwhile, Noa’s ex-boyfriend and Collective member Jamie has always been uneasy with his community’s elitist ways. The clash between working-class locals and the Collective is generations-old, beginning when a disgruntled shift worker purportedly set fire to the hotel where he worked, killing a rich heiress in the process. When Noa discovers inconsistencies about the hotel blaze, she and Jamie endeavor to uncover the truth, which might be more tied up in Jamie’s family history than he anticipated. Conversations regarding gentrification and class differences are surface-level and well-trodden, but sensorial depictions of the marshy Florida setting steal the show as the white-cued protagonists navigate pulse-pounding mystery and romance. Ages 12–up. Agent: Sarah Gerton, New Leaf Literary. (Feb.)