• Home
  • Books
  • About
  • News & Events
  • Stories at the Faultline — Substack
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter

Frances Rivetti

03/30/26

Prairie’s Book Review — Floating in the Middle

Vivid, tense, and emotionally resonant…

A reunion edges toward collapse in Rivetti’s atmospheric, climate-conscious drama. Seven former college friends reunite for a long weekend at a remote Northern California beach house perched on a crumbling cliff. With plans for coastal foraging and eco-diving, they hope to reconnect and move forward after years of change and a global pandemic. But old relationships resurface, tensions deepen, and hidden motives emerge. As their mantra; “the future is now,” takes hold, it becomes clear something is about to unravel in real time. Rivetti renders the natural world with vivid precision. She transforms the Sonoma Coast into a volatile presence that mirrors the characters’ inner instability. The cliffside house itself becomes an apt metaphor, its slow erosion echoing the fragile state of these long-standing relationships. While the novel’s engagement with climate change and ecological responsibility is timely and compelling, it occasionally tips into heavy-handed exposition. Even so, Rivetti captures the uneasy terrain of modern adulthood with insight and nuance, and she resists tidy resolution in favor of emotional ambiguity. 

A slow burn with a lasting aftershock.

Leave a Comment
Book Reviews

« BOOK GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Latest

  • Prairie’s Book Review — Floating in the Middle
  • BOOK GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE
  • Floating in the Middle, a New Novel By Frances Rivetti, Now Available in Print & Ebook

Latest Release

Big Green Country a novel by Frances Rivetti

Big Green Country — A Novel

Big Green Country is a gripping family saga that lifts the veil on a shrouded secrecy surrounding…

View Book

Copyright © 2026 · Frances Rivetti