SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025
WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH

A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime…

Ferociously smart and full of surprises Eleanor Catton

Engrossing… Full of brains and mysteryTelegraph

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.

This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk’s disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.

A Bookof the Year for theGuardian,Time,New Yorker,Esquire,Vanity Fair,FTand Barack Obama

Big, bold and surprisingGuardian

Illuminates the buried secrets of the human heartOprah Daily

Gorgeous… Almost impossibly heartbreakingNew York Magazine

It will make your head spin in the best wayDakota Johnson

Endlessly dazzlingVogue