Where The Crawdads Sing is the first novel by award-winning, best-selling American wildlife scientist and author, Delia Owens. In 1952, when she is almost seven, Miss Catherine Daniella Clark, known to everyone as Kya, watches her mother leave. She doesn’t return, and her older siblings, fed up with their abusive, alcoholic father, quietly slip away, one by one, leaving her to deal with her Pa, Jake Clark in their North Carolina marsh shack on her own.

They form an uneasy alliance: Pa is often gone for days at a time, and Kya learns to look after herself, conceal her mother’s absence from nosy Barkley Cove shopkeepers, hide from truant officers, and appreciate the beauty of the marsh and its creatures. Things get more difficult when she’s ten: Pa goes off and doesn’t return, meaning the sporadic cash he gives her from his disability cheques dries up and she has to fend for herself if she doesn’t want to give herself up to the authorities. Which she doesn’t.

She does have Pa’s boat, can travel the marsh waters to the estuary, pick mussels and oysters to trade. She covers the fact that Pa is gone, trying to stay under the radar, but there is a boy for whom she keeps an eye out: Tate Walker was kind to her once, shares her love of the marsh, and doesn’t feel dangerous like some do. She’s unaware that some others are looking out for her, concerned about her welfare and surreptitiously providing some of what she needs.

By the time she’s fourteen, she’s adept at fending for herself and staying under the radar. Her interest in marsh flora and fauna is boundless; she collects and sketches specimens, and when Tate offers to teach her to read and write, she’s able to record what she knows and observes. Abandoned by everyone in her family, she’s wary of giving her love, but takes a chance with Tate. Then he goes off to college to study the thing they’re both interested in, and breaks his promise to return.

Kya is absorbed in her study of the marsh, but still lonely, until Chase Andrews begins to take an interest in her…

In late October 1969, Sheriff Ed Jackson is alerted of the death of a local by two young boys who have caught sight of the corpse near an abandoned fire tower. Chase Andrews, star quarterback, town hotshot and favourite son of Barkley Cove, has been dead some ten hours, and when the Sheriff and Deputy Joe Purdue examine the scene, they are mystified: there are no tyre tracks or foot prints anywhere near the body. It looks like Chase fell from the tower, but neither are there fingerprints.

There’s plenty of speculation in the town: despite being married to Pearl, Chase was known for his tomcatting, so perhaps he fell foul of a jealous husband? But Barkley Cove is a small town, and enough people knew of his regular visits to the Marsh Girl that suspicion falls on Kya.

Owens gives the reader a dual-timeline coming-of-age tale, a love story, a murder mystery and a courtroom drama, all enclosed in some gorgeous lyrical prose. Her vivid descriptions really evoke the setting, the peace and beauty of the marsh, and the era, while there is enough intrigue to keep most readers guessing about the young man’s fate until the final reveal. Moving, heart-breaking and beautifully written, this is an outstanding debut.

This was an incredible book, I could not put it down. Such a unique storyline and engaging writin that y akes you on an unexpected journey, highly recommended.

The story line isn't predictable so it keeps you interested the whole way through. I stayed up way too late cause I could not put it down.