First published 2014
Nellie and Vivian Marsh scrape by in their cramped cottage beside Suffolk's Little River in 1913. The unmarried sisters follow the same routines until floodwaters deposit an unusual fish at their door along with a wandering stranger who transforms their lives. Twenty-six years later, eighteen-year-old Birdie Farr serves drinks in her family's London pub when she discovers her pregnancy. She seeks help from her mother Nellie, who asks Vivian to find adoptive parents for the baby. Birdie surrenders her newborn daughter but cannot forget her. As years pass, she becomes consumed with tracking down the child she lost. Her search forces her deeper into the Marsh sisters' hidden history, where old secrets refuse to stay buried and threaten everyone involved.
Genres: family-life, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, adoption, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, Suffolk, Little River
Period: 1913, 1939
292 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books Ltd