The Gloaming

Mara lives on an island where stories and magic are part of daily life. Every islander meets the same end: turned to stone on the cliff, facing the horizon, as all those before them have been.

Her parents, a boxer and a ballerina, left their earlier, turbulent lives to raise their children somewhere special and safe. The island and the sea pay no attention to what people want, though, and they demand a price from her family.

The loss leaves Mara's world in pieces. Then Pearl arrives, mysterious and hard to resist, and she stirs something in Mara that has gone dark. For the first time Mara can imagine a different story for herself than the one the island has written.

The book is a fairy-tale-tinged novel of first love and grief, set against the pull of home. It sets the neat shape of folklore against the untidy facts of real life, and asks whether Mara can step away from an ending that everyone around her accepts.