Holding Back the Tide

16-year-old Charlie McIntyre, wants nothing more than to leave the school year behind him and be back at his family’s beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey. In January, Charlie returns from school to find that his father has deserted the family. Devastated, Charlie buries his anger and resentment behind a wall. Desperate for some small sense of normal, Charlie longs for the carefree days of the beach, and hanging out with his small circle of friends, particularly his best friend Jackson. It is the normalcy he so desperately seeks now that his life has been turned upside down. However, Charlie soon discovers that the normalcy he thought being back in Ocean City would bring, is fleeting. Slowly, his relationships with his friends begin to shift, and Charlie finds himself adrift in a sea of change in which he struggles to remain afloat. Holding Back the Tide is a novel about the ever-changing landscape teenagers face as they plod along through friendships, family dynamics, puberty, t