Makara — Kristen Ringman

ANY WATER WAS A WAY HOME ... What if you grew up with a seal mother and a human father? Fionnuala is such a daughter: a part-human, part-seal Deaf woman who falls in love with Neela, a Hearing woman in India. While growing up with Neela's family in Tamil Nadu, she struggles with her distant parents living apart in Ireland and Indonesia. Eventually her father brings her to Venice where she becomes a mime artist. What binds them all together is the unstoppable undercurrent of ache running through the sea of their lives. "In gorgeous, briny prose, Kristen Ringman's novel grabbed my heart and didn't let it go until the last page. Fionnuala is a delightful character who glides easily between the worlds of the sea and land, the deaf and the hearing, grief and joy. Both magical and raw, this story made me happy to be alive." - Lucy Jane Bledsoe, author of The Big Bang Symphony