The Sea of Tranquility

A Novel

By: Katja Millay

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Candace Thaxton

Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the Earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her - her identity, her spirit, her will to live - pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: Every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at 17 years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding - or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

©2012 Katja Millay (P)2013 Simon & Schuster

This audiobook is extremely well done!

Throughout the story the author switches between the two main characters points of view; the readers also change, it makes the story a lot easier to understand.

awesome captivating story well read

What made the experience of listening to The Sea of Tranquility the most enjoyable?

Two Excellent Narrators, both male and female were fantastic. Also the back story is revealed slowly in time as the plot progresses.

What does Kirby Heyborne and Candace Thaxton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great deal of emotion and frustration, and sometimes reluctant curiosity, or strident apathy. Sometimes characters are unlikeable, and I might skip over those parts or roll my eyes at the drama.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

spoiler alert: The scene where Nastia and Josh make love, and his complete inability to understand how he 'breaks her', what and why she is, but knows that he may lose her too.

Any additional comments?

Utterly devastating understanding of the trauma of assault, self blame, self destruction, and distance from the burden of loving.

Compelling Story

A little slow in the beginning, but picks up speed and hard to put down.

Worth every minute of listening!!!

Some books can absolutely destroy you, rip out your emotional insides…and then in just 2 words, put you back together. This is exactly what The Sea of Tranquility did to me. Several people that I met at a book signing in January recommended this book to me. Few books that come with such high recommendations meet my expectations. This book surpassed them! In search of the ever elusive HEA, I was propelled by a compulsive obsession to finish this book! The author took me right up to the edge where I was almost ready to throw the book aside and scream that I will never believe in HEA’s ever again when I read the final page. Worth every tormented minute of reading!
Author, Katja Millay crafts a painfully dark narrative of two damaged, grief-stricken souls both in desperate need of healing. Despite the tragedy Nastya and Josh have experienced in their own individual lives, this is a story about the creation and offering of second chances. Sometimes when books are of a dark nature, the author allows the darkness to carry the story and propel you to find the answers out of simple interest. Katja Millay does not allow the darkness to define her book, even as Nastya permits the darkness to define her life. Bit by bit, Millay masterfully reveals Nastya’s tragedy. Piece by piece, Josh attempts to rebuilds his life. These two forge a new, if not unlikely, friendship and one would think the story would end there with a nice big HEA. However, this book is too real and edgy for that to happen. Josh and Nastya have had too much happen to them in their young lives, too much destroyed and taken away. Part of healing is not just intellectually knowing that what happened in your past is not your fault and should not control your future. Part of healing is actually embracing this knowledge and moving forward with life. Nastya struggles with this:
“It’s not that I wanted to be dead, I just felt like I should be. Which is why it’s hard when everyone expects you to be grateful simply because you’re not”
Josh struggles with this as well. Having lost everyone he has ever loved, he finds it almost excruciating to be vulnerable again. Together the two must overcome and heal from their past or it will consume their future as well.
I could go on forever and never do this book justice. Millay’s writing style is so fluid that I frequently forgot that I was a reader and not actually a part of this book. It is a book I could read again and again and be affected each and every read. Deep, dark, edgy, and simply exquisite.

Five stars

You will not be disappointed. This was a great book done justice by the equally great performance of the readers.

New Favorite

This is my new FAVORITE! You will not be sorry. The story will tug at your heart.

Couldn't stop listening

From beginning to end I was totally captured. Story was amazing and the narration was superb. Beautifully written.

Great book

From the opening sentence this book captivates you. You will not want to put this book down!

A book you won’t forget

This book touched me in so many levels. As someone who was forever destroyed by an event which I had no control over, I could relate to every word. The pain, the anger, the sadness of the realization you will never again be the person you once were. Yet, knowing that life does and will go in. Absolutely unforgettable characters and story that will stay with you.

Well done

A beautiful story and well acted I will recommend it. It is had it be in America .