Milly is angry. At fifteen, she didn’t expect to be living in her grandparent’s house with her mum gone and only her dad at her side. But no-one expected the earthquakes. Especially the big one that brought the building down that killed her mother and over a hundred others. The city of Christchurch has moved on, but Milly feels stuck in her anger and pain of her loss.

Moving house and changing schools like so many others hasn’t helped either. Milly is a loner, and targeted by a particular boy and his friends. Any chance he gets, he taunts ‘Mad’ Milly and taints any good she might find at school in the way of friends or normal life.

One place that soothes Milly is the ocean and a bay called Taylor’s Mistake. Surfing with her dad seems the only way she can truly relax and enjoy his company, as when at home or at school she is prickly and tense. Dad does his best, also missing his vibrant, beautiful wife. He works as a radio host, and was Milly’s rock when their lives were ripped apart. The truth is, Milly is consumed by guilt with something that happened the day her mother died. And she cannot climb out from under it.

Amir loves his parents. They have only Amir after a difficult birth, and they shower all their love and hope into his future. His father is a surgeon at a local Syrian hospital, and has aspirations for Amir to follow him into a career of helping save lives.

There is much Amir loves about his life. The closeness and camaraderie at his mosque, especially on Fridays when his father includes him in his friend’s group after prayer. His mother is helping Amir learn English, and they love surprising his father with all he has learnt.

At least until the bombs begin to fall. An uprising against the government was responded to with force, striking up even more dissent. Amir’s city had been spared for a while, but when it became too dangerous, with neighbours too scared to trust one another, Amir’s father decided it was time for Amir and his mother to escape.

Another thing Milly doesn’t expect in her life – to find a boy her age, clinging to a bucket out in the deep waters of her favourite bay. She rescues him on her paddleboard and hides this nervous stranger.

This fourteen year old boy relies on her for everything, now that she has saved his life. But he is also the catalyst that changes hers. Even when her tormentor interferes.

Amir is confused, scared and labelled a possible terrorist. Milly does everything she can to help her new friend, and with her father by her side, this stranger brings them closer and helps them heal, just as they heal him with their kindness and care.

Told in two voices – 15 year old Milly (told in 3rd person). She is a victim of the Christchurch earthquakes and bitter with grief and guilt.

14 year old Amir (told in 1st person) who has fled his home in Syria and the war that has ravaged it.

Both their lives have been ripped apart by events completely out of their control and they are dealing with the aftermath. Their unlikely friendship after Milly finds Amir clinging to a bucket in the ocean, changes everything. This thread of the story alone is a compelling read, with complications of drug runners, bullies and a terrible guilty secret also in the mix.

The cover is a depiction of the story’s main setting, and the feeling of loss of not only a home but entire suburbs and known and loved cityscape, is still raw within character Milly.

The loss of his parents, city and country of his birth is something Amir must bear alone in his new home of New Zealand.

Here Upon The Tide gives the reader a view into two lives that mirror many others in the world as we know it. Their friendship is heartfelt, their personal losses slowly mended by it, and their futures a little brighter too. 

Author – Blair McMillan

Age – 12+

(2023, Bateman Books, NZ, Family, Friendship, Grief, War, Crime, Bullies, Secret, Earthquakes, Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, Boulder Bay, Sumner, South Island, Guns, Bombing, Refugee, Stowaway, Theft, Attack, Ambush, Checkpoints, Danger, Gunfire, Loss, Guilt, Kindness, Community, Muslim, Mosque, Prayer)