Secrets of the Tides is the story of the Tide family, a play on words that is probably intended to seem clever but that falls a little flat in the execution. Richard and Helen Tide, as well as their daughters, Dora and Cassie, have become estranged as they all try to deal separately with a tragedy not immediately revealed to readers. The story jumps back and forth between the past and the present, from the perspective of one character to another, revealing the family’s history in parts. The novel opens with an attempted suicide some years before, segues into Dora’s present-day difficulties (coping with a surprise pregnancy), and introduces readers to Richard and Helen as they embark on their ill-fated marriage, before revealing the family’s much more devastating secret.

Richell’s plot is engaging, but her writing can be stunted and amateurish, even hackneyed. Her metaphors are tired, her dialogue clichéd. Attempts at foreshadowing the coming tragedy are clumsy and obvious. There is little here for a reader who is looking for substance over cheap thrills. In the hands of an experienced writer – Kate Morton or Picoult herself – this could have been an above-average addition to the genre of women’s fiction, but, as it is, it is disappointing.