Amazon:
For years, rumors of the ‘Marsh Girl’ have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life – until the unthinkable happens.
My reading experience:
This is one of those remarkable books that you stumble upon (or are given to you by your twin sister) and feel better just for having read it.
This evokes colours of orange and pink, the biggest skies you can imagine and deep, vacuous loneliness and aloneness but in a beautiful way.
Kya is abandoned by all of her family but not in a malicious way. It was unintentional, organic, inevitable. After trying school for just one day she decides he can learn more and be happier in the marshes by herself. She is a compelling protagonist.
The story is a coming of age tale couple with a murder mystery – very beautifully written prose that make this an unsettling yet captivating story.
Themes- resilience, love, loss, prejudice, loneliness, strength, determination, survival
Appletree Books 