Somewhere Beyond the Sea

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the sequel to T. J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, which was published in 2020. Together, these books are referred to as The Cerulean Chronicles. The House in the Cerulean Sea was named to several bestseller lists and, in 2021, won both the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and YALSA’s Alex Award, an annual award given to novels published for adults that are also suitable for young adult readers. These two novels are partially inspired by the Canadian government’s former policy of removing Indigenous children from their homes and placing them in white homes, group homes, and residential schools; the novels are also a response to contemporary American politics around trans and queer youth. The Cerulean Chronicles novels are “cozy” fantasies, set in a contemporary low fantasy world in which non-magical people struggle to understand and accept magical people. Government agencies heavily regulate the lives of magical people, whom many non-magical people fear and resent. One of these agencies is the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY). DICOMY is responsible for the welfare of magical children, especially those who have been abandoned by or separated from their parents, and it oversees several orphanages for these children.