Skip to content

'We Run the Tides' Reading Group Guide

Atlantic Books is offering guides to reading groups UK-wide for the critically-acclaimed novel We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida, out now in hardback and ebook, and available in paperback from 5th May 2022.

THE BLURB

‘Smart, perceptive, elegant, sad, surprising and addictive. And it’s also FUNNY.’ Nick Hornby

‘What We Run the Tides probes so poignantly is the volatility of female adolescence… Knowing and powerfully enigmatic.’ Observer

Teenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighbourhood. They know Sea Cliff’s homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters – as well as the upscale all-girls’ school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act – or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola’s sudden disappearance – a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.

Suspenseful and poignant, We Run the Tides is Vendela Vida’s masterful portrait of an inimitable place on the brink of radical transformation. Pre-tech boom San Francisco finds its mirror in the changing lives of the teenage girls at the centre of this story of innocence lost, the pain of too much freedom, and the struggle to find one’s authentic self. Told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion.

‘We Run the Tides is hypnotic, knowing, and propulsive as it examines girlhood, friendship, and the strong pull of the past.’ Meg Wolitzer

News

Book clubs – Get Ready to Connect! How to make the most from the site

The Book Club Hub, formerly known as Reading Groups for Everyone, is packed with amazing features to keep you and your fellow readers connected — not just within your club, but with the entire Book Club Hub community. Find out how to have members join your online book club.

Resources

Book Club Hub - Book Club User Guide

The Book Club Hub is a platform connecting readers and book clubs of all ages across the UK. It is managed by national reading charity, The Reading Agency. The Book Club Hub offers book club leaders access to free offers from publishers and prizes in return for reviews, gives them the chance to read the latest books and author news to help them pick their next read, and allows them to download resources to use with their club. Readers can also share reviews of the books they have read and...

News

Join in with Book Club Day UK, 11 September

Book Club Day UK: Stories you love, people to meet, a day for book clubs. Join us in celebrating the power of shared reading on Book Club Day UK on 11 September 2025! The day is for all types of groups – adults, young people and children – so make sure you inspire everyone to join in.

View our other programmes