“Sometimes she heard night-sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”

Delia Owens’ innovative first novel will keep the pages turning as you explore nature with the abandoned yet resourceful and resilient “marsh girl” named Kya.

This novel is both a coming-of-age story and a murder mystery; alternating from the 1969 murder investigation to Kya’s childhood in the outer banks of North Carolina from the 1940’s to the 1960’s.

Savor this book as you read, you won’t want it to end.