Cygnet

WINNER OF THE WRITERS'' GUILD FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2020ELLE ONES TO WATCH 2019''Not since Holden Caulfield have I been so captivated by a first-person voice as the one Season Butler creates in Cygnet'' Blake Morrison''A bright new voice in literature'' Bernardine Evaristo''Terribly moving'' China Miéville''A beautiful book, a meander through the fluid anxiety of youth'' Uzodinma Iweala''[A] potent debut . . . A strange, promising beginning'' Observer The Kid doesn''t know where her parents are. They left with a promise to come back months ago, and now their seventeen-year-old daughter is stranded on Swan Island. Swan isn''t just any island; it''s home to an eccentric old age separatist community who have shunned life on the mainland for a haven which is rapidly sinking into the ocean. The Kid''s arrival threatens to burst the idyllic bubble that the elderly residents have so carefully constructed - an unwelcome reminder of the life they left behind, and one they want rid of.Cygnet is the story of a young woman battling against the thrashing waves of loneliness and depression, and how she learns to find hope, laughter and her own voice in a world that''s crumbling around her.