About the Book:
For fans of Flight Behavior and Station Eleven, a novel set on the brink of catastrophe, as a young woman chases the world’s last birds—and her own final chance for redemption.
Franny Stone has always been a wanderer. By following the ocean’s tides and the birds that soar above, she can forget the losses that have haunted her life. But when the wild she loves begins to disappear, Franny can no longer wander without a destination. She arrives in remote Greenland with one purpose: to find the world’s last flock of Arctic terns and track their final migration. She convinces Ennis Malone, captain of the Saghani, to take her onboard, winning over his eccentric crew with promises that the birds will lead them to fish.
As the Saghani fights its way south, Franny’s dark history begins to unspool. Battered by night terrors, accumulating a pile of unsent letters, and obsessed with pursuing the terns at any cost, Franny is full of secrets. When her quest threatens the safety of the entire crew, Franny must ask herself what she is really running toward—and running from.
Propelled by a narrator as fierce and fragile as the terns she is following, Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations is both an ode to our threatened world and a breathtaking page-turner about the lengths we will go for the people we love.
My Review:
A masterpiece. Simply stunning!
Mam used to tell me to look for the clues.
“The clues to what?” I asked the first time.
“To life. They’re hidden everywhere.”
I’ve been looking for them ever since.
A magical mix of fiction, adventure and family saga, ‘Migrations’ is unlike any book I’ve read this year. I could not stop thinking about these characters after I finished and felt like a best friend had moved away when the book ended.
Franny is following the last Arctic terns as they complete their difficult journey from the Arctic to the Antarctic. At first Franny seems brusque and unlikable but slowly her tragic history is revealed through a series of letters she has written to her beloved husband, Niall, a professor who also shared her obsession and love for wildlife and nature. Franny has convinced the captain of the fishing boat Saghani to allow her to work on his boat so that she can track the path of the terns. It is a difficult and bone-breaking journey, and the rest of the crew resents her at first due to her complete lack of sailing experience.
Franny’s heartbreaking past comes to light over the course of the Saghani’s journey, and her life seems to parallel that of the Earth’s vanishing wildlife. The setting of the book is sometime in the near future after humans have almost decimated the environment. The Saghani is barely surviving as a fishing vessel and Franny’s mission seems completely hopeless, but she rallies the captain and crew who become just as obsessed with tracking the elusive terns. The author is a powerful writer, and my emotions were all over the place while listening to this book.
“I have never feared the sea. I have loved it with every breath of my, every beat of my heart.”
I listened to the audio book and the narrator’s magnetic, lilting voice captivated me from the first few minutes. I highly recommend listening to this story, as it is truly an unforgettable, emotional experience. Don’t miss this novel, it is absolutely spectacular!
(Thank you to libro.fm and the publisher for proving an advanced listening copy in exchange for an honest review.)