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Blue Beach
Not yet published
Expected 9 Jun 26Perfect for fans of
Promise Boys
, this gripping mystery follows a teenager who finds a murdered girl on her family's California beach—a discovery that will reveal the racism, segregation, and colorism rampant in her world.
Fifteen-year-old Blue Collins’s parents own the only Black beach in Santa Monica in 1929. She loves spending time there with her handsome friend Ben Clark. It’s a quiet spot where they can be alone and where Ben’s darker skin won’t be judged by onlookers—or Blue’s own family.
During a sunset rendezvous after a summer parade, the pair discovers the body of Dottie Whitehouse, a white debutante. Blue Beach is already threatened by local white property owners. Now their whole community could be at risk. In their panic, Blue and Ben move Dottie’s body into the waters of a nearby white beach.
Dottie’s body washes ashore, and it isn’t long before all eyes are on Ben. Everyone saw how Dottie teased him and how they shared smiles. And their history goes deeper than Blue ever realized. But to save Ben from the outraged white townspeople, she’ll need to do whatever she can to dig up the truth and prove his innocence. Ben isn’t the only one whose life depends on it.
Fifteen-year-old Blue Collins’s parents own the only Black beach in Santa Monica in 1929. She loves spending time there with her handsome friend Ben Clark. It’s a quiet spot where they can be alone and where Ben’s darker skin won’t be judged by onlookers—or Blue’s own family.
During a sunset rendezvous after a summer parade, the pair discovers the body of Dottie Whitehouse, a white debutante. Blue Beach is already threatened by local white property owners. Now their whole community could be at risk. In their panic, Blue and Ben move Dottie’s body into the waters of a nearby white beach.
Dottie’s body washes ashore, and it isn’t long before all eyes are on Ben. Everyone saw how Dottie teased him and how they shared smiles. And their history goes deeper than Blue ever realized. But to save Ben from the outraged white townspeople, she’ll need to do whatever she can to dig up the truth and prove his innocence. Ben isn’t the only one whose life depends on it.
- GenresYoung AdultSummerMystery
304 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication June 9, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Blue Collins lives in Santa Monica, California in 1929. Her parents own Blue Beach, a black beach located close to a white neighborhood. They have a snack stand on the beach, and live in a house close by. While not everyone wants them there, the local markets and even the town big wig, Daddy Curtiss, are supportive of the family and its enterprise. Blue, who is in high school, has a relationship with Ben, but her mother thinks that he is too dark complected. Blue's cousin Rita and her Aunty Caroline live with the Collins, and the older Rita is always giving Blue a hard time about setting her camp for someone more like the green eyed Joey. After a town celebration at the start of the summer, Blue senses some tension between Daddy Curtiss' son, Jack, and Jack's girlfriend, the popular Dottie. When Blue meets Ben on the beach to talk, the two discover Dottie's body. Knowing that Black residents will be accused if the body is found on Blue Beach, the two swim the body out into the sea and don't say anything to anyone. The town is upset at the death, but things are calm until Blue finds a note from Dottie in Ben's shirt, asking him to meet her. Rita gets a hold of the note and goes to the police. Ben goes on the run for his own safety, and Blue's family business is burned to the ground by the KKK. Ben's mother had taken care of Dottie when Ben was very young, and the two were good friends. Dottie's relationship with Jack was often difficult, but if the community can blame Ben, Jack doesn't have to be considered. While Daddy Curtiss offers to help the Collins family after the stand is burned down, does he have other interests at heart? This has some good twists and turns that I don't want to ruin!
Strengths: Murder mysteries are always popular, so it is a perfect way to introduce some interesting history into the mix. I knew that public pools, beaches, and even lakes were segregated, , but there are very few novels about how this affected young people. There is plenty of teen drama in the story that makes it seem like Dottie's boyfriend might be involved, but it was inspired to have the murderer be concerned more with the racial issues and the value of the Blue Beach land. Blue is just on the edge of so many of the problems in the community, so seeing everything from her perspective is quite interesting. The issue of colorism in the Black community is woven through the story. There are just enough details about the 1920s to add some interest, even though the murder mystery is first and foremost. This was quite a riveting read!
Weaknesses: This is a little more young adult than Parsons' other books, as there is a scene where their is a delicately described attempt at rape. I would probably not buy this for an elementary library. It also would have helped to say when this was set at the very beginning of the book, since I wasn't quite sure this was historical until Rita was depicted wearing a cloche hat! (The Mary Janes on the cover should have been a give away, but I wasn't paying attention.)
What I really think: Parsons has a good eye for historical fiction, and I loved her Clouds Over California (2023) and How High the Moon (2019). This reminds me a bit of Sundee Frazier's Mighty Inside, which also details the difficult position of being Black in a predominately white community in different decades of the 20th century. I would love to see Ms. Parsons write a book about the thriving Black community in the Greenwood district of Tulsa Oklahoma BEFORE the race riots of 1921.
Blue Collins lives in Santa Monica, California in 1929. Her parents own Blue Beach, a black beach located close to a white neighborhood. They have a snack stand on the beach, and live in a house close by. While not everyone wants them there, the local markets and even the town big wig, Daddy Curtiss, are supportive of the family and its enterprise. Blue, who is in high school, has a relationship with Ben, but her mother thinks that he is too dark complected. Blue's cousin Rita and her Aunty Caroline live with the Collins, and the older Rita is always giving Blue a hard time about setting her camp for someone more like the green eyed Joey. After a town celebration at the start of the summer, Blue senses some tension between Daddy Curtiss' son, Jack, and Jack's girlfriend, the popular Dottie. When Blue meets Ben on the beach to talk, the two discover Dottie's body. Knowing that Black residents will be accused if the body is found on Blue Beach, the two swim the body out into the sea and don't say anything to anyone. The town is upset at the death, but things are calm until Blue finds a note from Dottie in Ben's shirt, asking him to meet her. Rita gets a hold of the note and goes to the police. Ben goes on the run for his own safety, and Blue's family business is burned to the ground by the KKK. Ben's mother had taken care of Dottie when Ben was very young, and the two were good friends. Dottie's relationship with Jack was often difficult, but if the community can blame Ben, Jack doesn't have to be considered. While Daddy Curtiss offers to help the Collins family after the stand is burned down, does he have other interests at heart? This has some good twists and turns that I don't want to ruin!
Strengths: Murder mysteries are always popular, so it is a perfect way to introduce some interesting history into the mix. I knew that public pools, beaches, and even lakes were segregated, , but there are very few novels about how this affected young people. There is plenty of teen drama in the story that makes it seem like Dottie's boyfriend might be involved, but it was inspired to have the murderer be concerned more with the racial issues and the value of the Blue Beach land. Blue is just on the edge of so many of the problems in the community, so seeing everything from her perspective is quite interesting. The issue of colorism in the Black community is woven through the story. There are just enough details about the 1920s to add some interest, even though the murder mystery is first and foremost. This was quite a riveting read!
Weaknesses: This is a little more young adult than Parsons' other books, as there is a scene where their is a delicately described attempt at rape. I would probably not buy this for an elementary library. It also would have helped to say when this was set at the very beginning of the book, since I wasn't quite sure this was historical until Rita was depicted wearing a cloche hat! (The Mary Janes on the cover should have been a give away, but I wasn't paying attention.)
What I really think: Parsons has a good eye for historical fiction, and I loved her Clouds Over California (2023) and How High the Moon (2019). This reminds me a bit of Sundee Frazier's Mighty Inside, which also details the difficult position of being Black in a predominately white community in different decades of the 20th century. I would love to see Ms. Parsons write a book about the thriving Black community in the Greenwood district of Tulsa Oklahoma BEFORE the race riots of 1921.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
“Blue Beach” by Karyn Parsons is such an engaging mix of historical fiction and murder mystery that I ended up flying through it way faster than I expected. Set in 1929 Santa Monica, the story follows fifteen-year-old Blue Collins, whose family owns Blue Beach, which is a beach created for Black families during segregation. The setting alone immediately pulled me in because it’s not a piece of history that gets explored very often in YA fiction. I do want to provide a content warning as this book does go into some heavy themes, and there is a scene involving SA that was unexpected.
What starts as a summer mystery quickly turns into something much heavier and more dangerous when Blue and her friend Ben discover the body of a wealthy white girl named Dottie. Panicked about what will happen if the body is found on Blue Beach, especially with racial tensions already simmering in town, they move the body elsewhere. From there, everything spirals.
The mystery itself was genuinely addictive. There were a lot of twists, secrets, and shifting suspicions that kept me guessing the entire time. I especially liked how the book balanced the murder investigation with the social realities of the time period. Ben immediately becomes a target because he’s a Black boy in a racist town, and the fear surrounding that felt very real throughout the story. The tension builds constantly because you know that for Blue and her community, this is about way more than just solving a murder; their livelihoods and safety are at stake too.
Blue was a really strong main character. She’s determined, emotional, and constantly caught between protecting the people she loves and figuring out the truth. I also liked the complicated dynamics between Blue, Ben, and her cousin Rita. The book touches on colorism within the Black community as well, especially through Blue’s family’s opinions about Ben’s darker skin, which added another layer to the story that I thought was handled thoughtfully.
The atmosphere of the book was one of my favorite parts. The beach setting, the small-town gossip, the looming threat of the KKK, and the constant danger hanging over Blue Beach created such an uneasy feeling the entire time. Even though I sometimes wished the 1929 setting had a few more details brought in consistently, the historical backdrop still added a lot of weight to the story. One of the most effective things about the book is honestly how many of the racial injustices depicted still feel painfully relevant today.
That said, there are definitely some heavier and more difficult moments in the story. There’s an attempted sexual assault scene later in the book that was upsetting and may catch you off guard, and I do wish the aftermath had been addressed more fully. The ending also felt a little rushed compared to the slower buildup earlier in the novel, especially during the final confrontation.
Still, overall I thought this was a really compelling read. It’s part murder mystery, part coming-of-age story, and part exploration of racism, community, and survival during segregation-era California. If you like YA historical fiction with strong atmosphere, complicated social themes, and a mystery that keeps you turning pages late into the night, this one is definitely worth picking up.
“Blue Beach” by Karyn Parsons is such an engaging mix of historical fiction and murder mystery that I ended up flying through it way faster than I expected. Set in 1929 Santa Monica, the story follows fifteen-year-old Blue Collins, whose family owns Blue Beach, which is a beach created for Black families during segregation. The setting alone immediately pulled me in because it’s not a piece of history that gets explored very often in YA fiction. I do want to provide a content warning as this book does go into some heavy themes, and there is a scene involving SA that was unexpected.
What starts as a summer mystery quickly turns into something much heavier and more dangerous when Blue and her friend Ben discover the body of a wealthy white girl named Dottie. Panicked about what will happen if the body is found on Blue Beach, especially with racial tensions already simmering in town, they move the body elsewhere. From there, everything spirals.
The mystery itself was genuinely addictive. There were a lot of twists, secrets, and shifting suspicions that kept me guessing the entire time. I especially liked how the book balanced the murder investigation with the social realities of the time period. Ben immediately becomes a target because he’s a Black boy in a racist town, and the fear surrounding that felt very real throughout the story. The tension builds constantly because you know that for Blue and her community, this is about way more than just solving a murder; their livelihoods and safety are at stake too.
Blue was a really strong main character. She’s determined, emotional, and constantly caught between protecting the people she loves and figuring out the truth. I also liked the complicated dynamics between Blue, Ben, and her cousin Rita. The book touches on colorism within the Black community as well, especially through Blue’s family’s opinions about Ben’s darker skin, which added another layer to the story that I thought was handled thoughtfully.
The atmosphere of the book was one of my favorite parts. The beach setting, the small-town gossip, the looming threat of the KKK, and the constant danger hanging over Blue Beach created such an uneasy feeling the entire time. Even though I sometimes wished the 1929 setting had a few more details brought in consistently, the historical backdrop still added a lot of weight to the story. One of the most effective things about the book is honestly how many of the racial injustices depicted still feel painfully relevant today.
That said, there are definitely some heavier and more difficult moments in the story. There’s an attempted sexual assault scene later in the book that was upsetting and may catch you off guard, and I do wish the aftermath had been addressed more fully. The ending also felt a little rushed compared to the slower buildup earlier in the novel, especially during the final confrontation.
Still, overall I thought this was a really compelling read. It’s part murder mystery, part coming-of-age story, and part exploration of racism, community, and survival during segregation-era California. If you like YA historical fiction with strong atmosphere, complicated social themes, and a mystery that keeps you turning pages late into the night, this one is definitely worth picking up.
April 3, 2026
thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book!
3 ⭐️
I don’t think I’m the target age group for this novel (it’s YA iirc) and as such at times it felt a bit juvenile to me, but it has a lot of heavy topics involved and while the villains of the story are obvious, they definitely give you a grimy feeling throughout.
I do think it’s worth mentioning though that at the 90% ish mark in the book there is an SA scene on page.. I didn’t expect it and I had to put the book down for a bit, and it’s not really addressed or anything afterwards because for plot reasons, no one knows about it but the ones directly involved. It sucks because there’s not much justice brought to the victim in that regard in my opinion.
The “final showdown” after this also felt very rushed and suddenly unrealistic compared to some other events in the book. I am a person of color myself but obviously did not live in the time period this was set in, so some of the other specific racial attacks I cannot really vouch for the exact realism of, but the actions of the main character at the end of the book came out of left field for me and the whole sequence seemed a bit bizarre.
The writing style is just okay for me, again I don’t think I’m exactly the target audience but in general, it does what it set out to do in exploring themes of race related violence etc.
3 ⭐️
I don’t think I’m the target age group for this novel (it’s YA iirc) and as such at times it felt a bit juvenile to me, but it has a lot of heavy topics involved and while the villains of the story are obvious, they definitely give you a grimy feeling throughout.
I do think it’s worth mentioning though that at the 90% ish mark in the book there is an SA scene on page.. I didn’t expect it and I had to put the book down for a bit, and it’s not really addressed or anything afterwards because for plot reasons, no one knows about it but the ones directly involved. It sucks because there’s not much justice brought to the victim in that regard in my opinion.
The “final showdown” after this also felt very rushed and suddenly unrealistic compared to some other events in the book. I am a person of color myself but obviously did not live in the time period this was set in, so some of the other specific racial attacks I cannot really vouch for the exact realism of, but the actions of the main character at the end of the book came out of left field for me and the whole sequence seemed a bit bizarre.
The writing style is just okay for me, again I don’t think I’m exactly the target audience but in general, it does what it set out to do in exploring themes of race related violence etc.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
⭐⭐⭐⭐
BLUE BEACH by Karyn Parsons (June 9, 2026)
Thank you Netgalley and Little Brown for the eArc
In the 1920's, white girl Dottie is found m*rdered on Blue Beach, Blue and Ben panic, deciding to move the boy. When Ben is accused and goes on the run, Blue doesn't believe he's guilty. She knows he isn't. Blue will stop at nothing to uncover the truth.
BLUE BEACH is a YA historial fiction novel. This 1920's set novel blends m*rder with coming-of-age themes. This is also set during a time of segregation, so there is racism, discrimination, and KKK mentions/sightings.
I found BLUE BEACH to be interesting, and the overall mystery was okay. There was guilt everywhere, but no one really screamed: M*rderer. That made it hard to land on suspect until Blue, herself, figured it out. Then it was so obvious that I should have seen it from the beginning. I loved that about this book: the unpredictability.
For those who may read this, which I do recommend, there are themes that may be triggering.
BLUE BEACH by Karyn Parsons (June 9, 2026)
Thank you Netgalley and Little Brown for the eArc
In the 1920's, white girl Dottie is found m*rdered on Blue Beach, Blue and Ben panic, deciding to move the boy. When Ben is accused and goes on the run, Blue doesn't believe he's guilty. She knows he isn't. Blue will stop at nothing to uncover the truth.
BLUE BEACH is a YA historial fiction novel. This 1920's set novel blends m*rder with coming-of-age themes. This is also set during a time of segregation, so there is racism, discrimination, and KKK mentions/sightings.
I found BLUE BEACH to be interesting, and the overall mystery was okay. There was guilt everywhere, but no one really screamed: M*rderer. That made it hard to land on suspect until Blue, herself, figured it out. Then it was so obvious that I should have seen it from the beginning. I loved that about this book: the unpredictability.
For those who may read this, which I do recommend, there are themes that may be triggering.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for providing the copy of Blue Beach by Karyn Parsons. I was drawn into this book immediately. Blue was a great main character, and I loved learning about her day-to-day life, especially her love/hate relationship with Rita.,and her friendship with Ben. I forgot that the book was set in 1929, and more historical events or objects would have made sense. Unfortunately, many of the racial incidents could be taking place today. I loved this beautifully written book! 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
4.5
This riveting and fast-paced historical mystery/thriller tackles racism, colorism, and privilege, in addition to love and loyalty to friends and family. Readers who enjoy books by authors such as Kelly McWilliams, Nick Brooks, Jewell Parker Rhodes, and Jumata Emill are the perfect audience for this book. The explosive ending is highly satisfying - make sure Parsons' YA debut page-turner is on your radar!
Thank you to Little Brown Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for this advanced reader copy.
This riveting and fast-paced historical mystery/thriller tackles racism, colorism, and privilege, in addition to love and loyalty to friends and family. Readers who enjoy books by authors such as Kelly McWilliams, Nick Brooks, Jewell Parker Rhodes, and Jumata Emill are the perfect audience for this book. The explosive ending is highly satisfying - make sure Parsons' YA debut page-turner is on your radar!
Thank you to Little Brown Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for this advanced reader copy.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews