UNDERTOW, a chilling Young Adult Fantasy, starts in the humid summer of Coney Island. A curfew is in place, as creatures emerge nightly from the sea and go scavenging. Lyric finds it hard enough surviving migraines without her family's living in an unsellable house near an off-limits beach in the heat.

Thirty thousand nonhumans marched out of the sea and set up camp on the beach. Lyric and her pals have to attend school, but today is the day when the first Alpha immigrants are to attend as well. There's another issue for her family - everyone her mother knew has been hunted down and removed by shadowy forces. The family tries to live incognito, though as her dad's a six-foot-six police officer, that's not always easy. And now there's media attention as protestors crowd the school. Would you want to go to class with riots outside and an armed SWAT team cop in your room?

I was surprised by how quickly the atmosphere felt real and convincing. Reading the book, I was hoping it wasn't going to turn out to be either a horror or a too-sweet account of how we are all really the same. I believe that Michael Buckley has managed to avoid these traps. Some of the Alpha are Sirena, like mermaids, while others are less human-attractive Ceta and Nix varieties, with different coloured skin and appendages. Not only that, but they don't want to be forced to go to school. There is a sort-of romance, but it didn't really work for me.

Naturally, the protestors range from senators and governors to mob thugs. Amid plans to put an electrified fence around the shore (I wondered if the Alpha wouldn't just swim to some other shore) or integrate their children to schools, there are individual tales of humanity and suffering. But the local kids have always had problems. It's always been too hot, with not enough money for air-con. Race tensions and comparative wealth issues added to the seedy shore activities. I felt concerned that Bex, Lyric's best friend, constantly wants both girls to dress sexy although her mother's boyfriend is a loser.

Michael Buckley's story is not a pretty one and the tensions only increase. After reading UNDERTOW, among other concerns, you'll be thinking of all the trash that lies in the ocean. This is recommended for mature young adults or adults who want a different, exciting and at times disturbing fantasy.