A hypnotic and haunting story of longing and survival, losing yourself and finding your family

Close to the shore is the island: uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found there as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother. When she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening up a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become.

Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear. But she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth’s mother, Edith, locks her daughter away – first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free.

'Daisy Johnson's best novel... a multi-generational story of secrets, obsessions, and love' Jeff VanderMeer

'Astonishingly beautiful' Kaliane Bradley

'An unflinchingly observed treatise on the maelstrom of motherhood. Masterful' Kiran Millwood Hargrave

'A fierce and magical writer' Liz Berry

'At once devastating and heartening' Helen Phillips

© Daisy Johnson 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026