Pearl remembers Nell's feet stretched towards the campfires on the beach, her fourth toe curled in and nestled against the middle toe like a small prawn. They all have a curled fourth toe - Diana, Lucy, Pearl.

When Pearl's grandmother Nell dies unexpectedly, Pearl and her family - mother Diana, sister Lucy - return to Kangaroo Island to mourn and farewell her. Each of them knew Nell intimately but differently, and each woman must reckon with Nell's passing in her own way.

But Nell had secrets, too, and as Pearl, Diana and Lucy interrogate their feelings about the island, Pearl starts to pull together the scraps Nell left behind - her stories, poems, paintings - and unearths a connection to the island's early history, of the early European sealers and their first contact with the Ngarrindjeri people. As the three women are in grief pulled apart from each other, Pearl's deepening connection to their history, the island's history, grounds her, and will ultimately bring the women back to each other.

Reserved for LadyIndigo :O)

Dear future readers of this book,

Thank you so much for coming to the website to check out where this book has been!

Now that you're here, I'd really appreciate it if you write a journal entry right away. It is just a little note to let the book's past readers know that the book is safe, and where you found it. You can always add another one later if you would like to share what you thought of it, and whether you will keep or release it.

yay :)

thankyou so much for this wishlist title and all of the added surprises :)

it arrived at the post office here on 18/2 so it has had quite the journey across the country - it only beat me home by a day - i got home last night & i've been gone less time that the book has been travelling...

i look forward to reading it soon

thanks again
;)

shortlisted - debut fiction in the indie book awards 2020

i have been reading this for many many weeks - perhaps because i could not read it in 'one' sitting, uninterrupted is more a reflection of my struggle with it than the book itself

the language and prose are lovely and the bits of kangaroo island history, especially the indigenous history, are woven in with interest

in recent years, i've come to dislike this current structuring of the alternate time periods, the alternate chapters by different characters - i have sometimes read one character/time period and then gone back to do the others, but that did not work in this novel

oh well - off it goes as a wishlist tag
enjoy

happy reading
;)

happy reading

;)

Wishlisted book has arrived thankyou!