The Wild Beneath

A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. For readers of Wild Dark Shore and The Time Traveler's Wife, a fierce, haunting story of one woman caught between her first love and a mysterious stranger who upends everything-and the two worlds that won't let her go.

Annie MacLeod always knew she was different, growing up on a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest, navigating by stars and swimming with sea creatures alongside her parents and best friend Evan. But when a tsunami shatters her world, Annie is stranded on land and forced to confront how eccentric she is. In the wreckage, she rescues a wordless man named Walker, who emits a hum only she can hear.

Their connection is instant, electric. Walker's touch gives Annie visions of the ocean's hidden world, a life she's never known but feels inexplicably drawn to. Yet even as she is pulled toward him, Evan-the steadfast love who has always been there-remains on dry land, offering the stability she may have to leave behind. Annie is torn between Evan's grounding presence and Walker's magnetic secrets. But then, Walker vanishes, along with the answers she needs about who she really is.

Six years later, Annie has left the sea and buried the past-until Walker's otherworldly sound returns, pulling her back toward the ocean and the life she abandoned. The truth under the water is more ancient than she ever could have known, and Annie must confront a choice that will test her heart and determine her future.

From the publisher Harper Collins / Park Row | Aug 4, 2026 | 384 PAGES | ISBN-13 9780778306061 | Women's Fiction

"Anderson's lyrical and ethereal first novel connects readers to the mystery and vitality of the natural world and our relationship to it. A perfect match for readers of Charlotte McConaghy, Richard Powers, and Shelby van Pelt."-Booklist (starred review)

"Anderson's book is ethereal, languid, crafted of language that rushes and recedes like a tide, buoying a story that reminds us sometimes the impossible is possible."-Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A haunting, heart-stopping debut. The Wild Beneath is both a love story and a myth, a suspenseful tale steeped in the rhythms of the ocean and the mysteries of human connection. This novel, both intimate and epic, reveals how deeply our lives are entwined with the natural world."-Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"An incandescent debut. Kelly Anderson pares the world down to its essentials and reminds us of the beauty and mystery of being alive...I did not want to come up for air."-Emma Knight, New York Times bestselling author of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

"In The Wild Beneath, debut author Kelly Anderson elegantly blurs the line between nature and humanity, illuminating the deep, unseen currents that connect us-to each other and to the natural world. Readers won't so much read this novel as feel it. I'll never look at the ocean the same way again. Absolutely dazzling."-Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary and The Amalfi Curse

"An entrancing, magical novel that highlights the beauty of the natural world and our fragile place within it. Spellbinding!"-Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series

"The Wild Beneath is part love story, part ode to nature, with a mystical, musical, mysterious quality that carries readers along like a gentle wave."-Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure and The Poppy Fields

"This is the book I hope for every time I open a new cover. Immersive, lyrical, deeply and magically real, The Wild Beneath reminds us how thin and beautiful the line is between the natural and human worlds. Fans of Charlotte McConaghy and Eowyn Ivey will find a new favorite in Kelly Anderson."-Erica Bauermeister, New York Times bestselling author of The Scent Keeper

"Anderson has given us an achingly lovely book about the melodic pull of the natural world and the steep cost of pretending we don't hear its song. The Wild Beneath is a sublime debut."-Lily Brooks-Dalton, national bestselling author of The Light Pirate

"Drop everything and read The Wild Beneath, Kelly Anderson's astonishing debut. Her luminous prose reveals the world that exists beneath our own, from the depths of the ocean to the wild terrain of the human heart. I was transported." -Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year

"In lush, lyrical prose, Anderson weaves a spellbinding tale of singular Annie-her loves, her losses, her profound connection to the sea. Richly imagined and unlike anything you've read, The Wild Beneath is at once a beautifully rendered tribute to the natural world, a layered love story, and a deft reminder of the elemental bonds that tie us to each other and to the wild at the fringes of our urban lives."-Cathy Marie Buchanan, New York Times bestselling author

"The Wild Beneath is a song of a book, haunting and beautiful and strange, rich and lingering. It drew me in like the pull of the sea." -Emma Hooper, internationally bestselling author of Etta and Otto and Russell and James

"Kelly Anderson's writing is sensual, poetic, and alive. The Wild Beneath is a modern mythic romance, an elemental love triangle, and an ode to earth and water. I read this book with whole-hearted, full-bodied pleasure."-Sarah Selecky, Giller Finalist and author of Radiant Shimmering Light