The Palace at the End of the Sea by Simon Tolkien ~ a Review

by MK French

In 1929, New York City, Theo Sterling is caught between different worlds. His father is a Jewish businessman, and his mother is Catholic. Disaster strikes the family, and charismatic friends convince Theo he can fight fascism. Rebellion carries a high price, making him question other ideologies as well.

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June 2025; Lake Union Publishing; ‎ 978-1662528620
audio, ebook, print (463 pages); historical fiction

Simon Tolkien is JRR Tolkien's grandson and an acclaimed author in his own right. He put incredible amounts of research into the first part of this duology, and the second half will be released later this year. Chapters are a little on the longer side, since they outline a defining moment in his life at that period. We start when Theo is eleven, right before the stock market crash, and the divide between his parents and their worlds becomes more obvious to him. Children don't really think about parents or their lives, and he had no cause to question his father's optimism or his mother's deep religious fervor. Both are due to past trauma, and the silence they work with means Theo never really processes it before trauma of his own begins to take root. He's an impressionable teenager needing a parental figure to take notice and give approval. Theo sees how rampant capitalism leads to unscrupulous behavior and loss, and communism involves loss and death as well. The only thing he can be sure of as the 1930s progress is that he's against fascism and destroying people for his own benefit. 

Through Theo, we see the wealthy and poor parts of New York City, the upper crust of English boarding school, and the Spanish countryside. Different points of view are presented, and Theo doesn't want to pick a side. He's told that this tactic is essentially still picking a side, largely because picking a side for certain means taking action and potentially getting harmed. He's a teenager and has already gone through significant losses that he's not willing to endure more. But at the same time, he sees the inequalities inherent in the world and is affected by it.  "The truth was hidden behind the dishonesty of the picturesque." As the first half of a duology, we get his formative years in the 30's, when different ideologies are on the rise and in competition with each other. Desperation affects people in different ways, and Theo has always been apart from his surroundings, observing and trying to participate at times without true belief. It will be interesting to see in the second half what will push him to fully commit himself.

Buy The Palace at the End of the Sea at Amazon

Born and raised in New York City, M.K. French started writing stories when very young, dreaming of different worlds and places to visit. She always had an interest in folklore, fairy tales, and the macabre, which has definitely influenced her work. She currently lives in the Midwest with her husband, three young children, and a golden retriever.

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