Marsh girl. Poor white trash. Dirty girl.

Kya Clarke is an outsider. Growing up on the marshlands of North Carolina in a poverty-stricken home full of violence, she struggles from an early age to be accepted. The novel charts the course of Kya’s life from childhood to womanhood and explores the desire to belong. When she is repeatedly rejected by the children at school, abandoned by her siblings and her mother, and vilified by the town’s folk, Kya withdraws to the only environment that sustains her – the marshlands. Here she leads a solitary existence, fending for herself, hiding from the authorities, and learning to navigate a life alone.

Her father is no help and has no qualms about leaving a young girl to fend for herself. Even though he can see that his child is in survival mode, he does nothing to help her and instead offers only criticism. ‘Ah b’leeve ya deaf and dumb as all git-out,’ he tells her before departing the house without telling her where he was going and when he was coming back. Her siblings have left home, her mother has run off, and Kya is left to negotiate survival with nature as her teacher.

Kya has no one to guide her through the rites of passage. When the time comes for occasions like buying a first bra or her first period, the people who help her are a black woman and a teenage boy. Compassion is found in the most unlikely of places.

The description of the environment is rich and dense. Delia Owens is a wildlife scientist, and hence her knowledge of the ecosystem is vast. This could have resulted in an overkill of information about the minutiae of the North Carolina coast; however, her depictions of the land and the water are masterful. The reader sees the surroundings through Kya’s eyes; moreover, they feel and breathe the life in the swamp, trees, the tides and the seasons. The reader feels the beauty of the marshes leaping off every page. The marsh is Kya’s lifeline. It feeds her, sustains her and brings a little joy into her harsh life. The marsh and surroundings do the same for the reader who becomes immersed in the natural world.

Kya’s symbiotic relationship with nature is close to what is happening in her own existence. The beauty and savagery of the wild are reflected in the events of Kya’s first stirrings of love and desire. And of betrayal, heartbreak, abandonment and broken promises. One of the most poignant images in the novel is where Kya describes what she sees when the female praying mantis bites off the male’s head after copulation. Kya’s anger and despair over how men have treated and used her are mirrored here through the symbolism of this act. It is a metaphor for her own experiences – men have betrayed her; they are not to be trusted, so she resists affection and giving in to her feelings. They need to be cut off before she can be hurt again.

Owens creates an atmosphere of dreadful expectancy with a nod to To Kill A Mockingbird and a gentle undertone of the southern gothic. The humidity, the oppressiveness of small-town bigotry and racism, a forbidden relationship and a possible murder come together to create an undercurrent of anticipation. Kya’s world is about to change. Her world of self-reliance and peaceful isolation is about to come undone. She has been preyed upon and betrayed, and now she is the prey magnified; the whole town is against her.

The story has two strands. The ongoing survival tale of Kya and her search for love and the mystery concerning the murder of local man Chase Andrews. Underlying the crime element of the novel is the unspoken crime of abuse, neglect and abandonment of children. Belonging and rejection are themes that run through the novel. It also addresses domestic violence, justice, prejudice, awakening sexuality and environmental issues.

The ending felt rushed, but overall, this beautifully written novel stays with the reader long after it has ended.

Highly recommended.