After his failed rescue of his brother Wyatt in a suspicious house fire, sixteen-year-old Russell Cobb wakes up from a coma, strangely mistaken for him and thrust into the middle of an arson investigation. Russell’s only hope, before his bandages come off, is to deduce the likeliest suspect in his troubled past or risk being charged with homicide. In view of his brother’s death, he begins to see his family, Wyatt’s enigmatic girlfriend Edie, and a school gang in a darker light, colored by deceit and possibly his own paranoia, until Edie turns the tables, tying his brother to an unimaginable crime.
Set against the idyllic backdrop of Aqua Verde, a mid-60s California beach town, ANEMONE addresses society at a moral crossroads when what went on behind closed doors was nobody’s business. Russell flees to a condemned seaside hotel where he joins a draft-dodging surfer, and later, a fugitive Edie, with whom he falls in love. Through a tangle of twists and traumatic revelations, and mentored by the surfer, Russell discovers more than he could have bargained for about her, his family, and the real target of the fire.
Brutal, gripping, and tragic, ANEMONE is a coming-of-age tale that deals with issues still relevant today. At its core is betrayal, emotional survival, and revenge within two ordinary families whose misdeeds bring about a reckoning from which no one emerges unscathed.
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