Where the crayfish sing

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

For years, rumors of the Swamp Thing have swirled around Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village in North Carolina. The death of young Chase Andrews has only fueled them. Who could have killed him if not the wild girl who lived alone in the depths of the swamp?

But Kaia had not been understood. Sensitive and intelligent, she had managed to survive all alone, abandoned by humans, with the company of the seagulls and what the sand and salt taught her. When two young men from the village are captivated by her wild beauty, Kaia opens up to a new life. But then the unthinkable happens.

An ode to the natural world and a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, reminding us how our childhoods define us forever and that human nature carries primal, violent secrets from which no one can escape.

“Kaia laid the magazine down at her feet, her mind wandering like the clouds. Some female insects eat their mates, mammalian mothers abandon their young due to extreme stress, many males find risky or cunning ways to get their sperm to outcompete their competitors. Nothing is too indecent as long as it helps the cycle of life continue. Kaia knew that this was not some dark side of Nature; it was simply inventive ways of coping when everything was against you. And with humans, it certainly went even further.”

"Painfully beautiful"

The New York Times

"It takes your breath away"

The Times