Island Child

the long version

"A spellbinding, deeply felt debut novel--haunting and poignant, soaring and gorgeously wrought--about motherhood, freedom, and our own power to shape our destinies. Oona grew up on the island of Inis: a wind-blasted rock off the coast of Ireland where the men went out on fishing boats and the women tended sheep; where the only book was the Bible; and where girls stayed at home until they became mothers themselves. Even as a child, Oona knew she wanted to leave, but she never could have anticipated the tumultuous turn of events that would ultimately compel her to flee. Now, after twenty years--Oona having forged a new life for herself--her daughter vanishes, forcing Oona to face her past in order, finally, to be free of it. Heralding a singularly gifted new voice in fiction, The Island Child is a timeless story of birth and betrayal, storms and shipwrecks and fairy children, and the weight of long-buried secrets"--