Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - Book Review

I’ve rewritten this review so many times. Oh, the pressure of doing this book justice! So in the interest of just getting it out there, here are three things I want to share about Where The Crawdads Sing:

1) Every summer for the past 30-plus years I have been fortunate to holiday on the south coast of South Australia, in a town called Goolwa by the Coorong. It’s where the River Murray meets the Southern Ocean, a landscape that includes river, ocean, sand dunes and wetlands, inhabited by birds and marine life. Where The Crawdads Sing has given me a greater appreciation for this coastal wilderness on my doorstep.

2) The Coorong is also the setting for one of Australia’s best loved children’s books. If you enjoyed Storm Boy by Colin Thiele as a child, you will love Where The Crawdads Sing as an adult. Delia Owens tells the story of Marsh Girl, a young woman who lives in the coastal marshlands of North Carolina in 1950s America. It’s a story about loneliness, resilience, coming of age, the beauty of our natural world….and a possible murder.

3) This is a beautiful, stunning, wonderful book. Please read it! As my first book for 2019 I’ve set the bar high. Have you read Where The Crawdads Sing? I’d love to know what you think.

Synopsis from Hachette Australia: For years, rumours of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl.

But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved.

When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.

Happy reading!