Daughters of the Air — Elisa Hategan

Paris, 2015: Walking along the banks of the Seine, twenty-four year old Darya Eliade, a young woman spending the summer abroad after the death of her father, stumbles upon a photograph of Adele Hugo, the forgotten daughter of France's greatest author.

Haunted by the sadness she sees in Adele's eyes, Darya becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her, setting in motion a journey of self-discovery into her own past as a radical political activist.

With the help of Jeanne, a mysterious Spanish journalist, Darya's search for the root of heartbreak will track the Hugos' movements from Paris to the Channel Islands, from spiritualist séances to the austere coastlines of Nova Scotia.

Guernsey, 1854: Eager to escape the oppressive regime of her famous father, twenty-four year old Adele Hugo begins a passionate affair with a young English lieutenant, Albert Pinson.

Over the next ten years their affair will spiral into madness and tragedy, as Adele's idealistic pursuit of true love will stop at nothing to fulfill itself. Against a backdrop of occult and political insurgence, Adele plots how she will capture the heart of a man who despises her.

Spanning three timelines, two continents and incorporating the fairytale storyline of The Little Mermaid, Daughters of the Air is a meditation on the nature of love and all its unrestrained expressions: sacrifice, obsession, destruction and redemption. The novel brings together the concepts of reincarnation, fate and love to uncover a secret buried for two centuries.