Winner of the Society of Authors ADCI Literary Prize, 2024
'Complex, rich and beautifully crafted’ – Claire North
‘Lyrical, moving, and at times haunting… This is a book I will be thinking about for a long time. Just brilliant!‘ – Awais Khan
In an island community facing extinction, can hope rise stronger than grief?
Sisi de Mathilde lives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean. With the seas rising, the birth rate plummeting and her community under threat, she works as a scientist, reporting on the rapidly changing local climate conditions to help protect her island home. But her life is thrown into turmoil when she finds herself newly widowed and unexpectedly pregnant.
When a group of outsiders arrive and try to persuade her community to abandon the island, Sisi is caught between the sacred 'old ways' of her ancestors and the possibilities offered by the outside world. As tensions rise and the islanders turn on one another, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child.