Migrations Review

Author: Charlotte McConaghy
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Genre: Literary Fiction
Release Date: Aug. 4, 2020
Purchase Link: Amazon

My Rating: 5 Wandering Hearts

A heartfelt thank you to Flatiron Books for an arc of this book via Netgalley. I am forever changed and thankful for having read it.

For readers of Station Eleven and Flight Behavior, a debut novel set on the brink of catastrophe, as a young woman chases the world’s last birds - and her own final chance for redemption.

Synopsis & Author Bio following review.

Review:
Have you ever read a book that you knew as soon as you finished it, it would forever leave a scar on your heart and soul?  One that completely shattered you but you couldn't stop reading it?  Migrations is one of those books for me.  This dark yet beautifully rendered story is very raw, primal and heart wrenching.    Franny Stone is a wanderer at heart and by following the ocean's tides and the Arctic Terns, she feeds a mysterious, burning need within while also seeking solace for past transgressions, guilt, and regret.  The world's on the brink of disaster with all wildlife near extinction.  Franny makes her way to Greenland and hitches a ride on one of the last fishing vessels in order to follow the last migration of the Arctic Terns to their final resting place.  It soon becomes clear that Franny is driven by demons and ghosts she can't outrun as she pushes her mind and body to the edge.  As her cover story begins to unwind, her tightly wrapped layers and closely guarded secrets unravel to reveal the pain she carries and the hidden force driving her.  Piece by piece, readers will learn her truth.

I don't have the words to explain the impact this story, Franny and the rest of the misfit crew had on me.  Without permission, these characters burrowed under my skin, overwhelmed my senses, left me reeling and breathless and forever changed.  The heart-wrenching, twisted story  unfurls at a brisk pace via a strong, compelling, and yet somewhat fragile and unstable narrator leaving little doubt Franny's mission is inspired by concealed secrets.  Why does she feel impelled to follow the final migration of the terns?  Guilt, devastating loss, redemption, the sheer will to survive and the power of love are all key in this bleak, yet beautiful story of how far one will go for love.  I'd like to say "Thank You" to author Charlotte McConaghy for sharing this masterpiece with the world.  I hope people will heed the warning to take care of each other and this wondrous world we are privileged to reside in for a short period in time. Migrations is a unique, gripping, timely story that now resides on my Favorites List.  I can't wait to explore more of this author's work.  Highly Recommended!

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

♥Sandra♥

Synopsis:

 A dark past. An impossible journey. The will to survive.

Franny Stone has always been a wanderer. By following the ocean’s tides and the birds that soar above, she can forget the losses that have haunted her life. But when the wild she so loves begins to disappear, Franny can no longer wander without a destination. She arrives in remote Greenland with one purpose: to find the world’s last flock of Arctic terns and follow them on their final migration. She convinces Ennis Malone, captain of the Saghani, to take her onboard, winning over his salty, eccentric crew with promises that the birds she is tracking will lead them to fish.

As the Saghani fights its way south, Franny’s new shipmates begin to realize that the beguiling scientist in their midst is not who she seems. Battered by night terrors, accumulating a pile of letters to her husband, and dead set on following the terns at any cost, Franny is full of dark secrets. When the story of her past begins to unspool, Ennis and his crew must ask themselves what Franny is really running toward—and running from.

Propelled by a narrator as fierce and fragile as the terns she is following, Migrations is a shatteringly beautiful ode to the wild places and creatures now threatened. But at its heart, it is about the lengths we will go, to the very edges of the world, for the people we love.

I'm Charlotte, the author of the forthcoming novel MIGRATIONS, published in the US in August 2020, and published in the UK and AUS as THE LAST MIGRATION.

After having grown up writing SFF, this is my first foray into adult literary fiction and will be my first book to cross oceans. I have a Graduate Degree in Screenwriting and a Masters in Screen Arts.

I'm also passionate about wildlife and the disastrous extinction crisis faced by the world today, which is how MIGRATIONS came to be the story of a woman's pursuit of the world's last birds.