One afternoon, Rosie looks out from an upstairs window as her teenage daughter Saoirse approaches home on her bike. Stepping away to finish up a few tasks before making her way down to greet her, Rosie is met only by her son when she gets downstairs. Saoirse’s bike is lying outside at the side of the road and she has disappeared without a trace. Years later, despite continually renewed efforts to find her, Saoirse is still missing; as those around her slowly move on with their lives and deal with this grief without closure in their own ways, Rosie continues to live everyday believing her daughter is making her way home. As each tries to cope in their own way, the strain creates a gaping divide between Rosie and her husband that seems impossible to close. When Rosie’s father asks her to return to Roaring Bay, the island off the coast of West Cork where she grew up, and assist him in sailing their ferry connecting the island to the mainland, it seems like the time away could be the best thing for Rosie. But island life has its own complications and revelations, and, as the book draws us back through Rosie’s own childhood, her life before kids and in those early years of having a young family, and the excruciating last eight years of endless hope, we are propelled towards a dramatic conclusion. 

The main chapters are interspersed with short flashbacks to a pivotal moment, which works really well in terms of driving this emotionally charged story forward. It’s been awhile since a book moved me this much (there were tears I tell you, which never happens). And that ending – if you know, you know. Rosie is richly conjured as a parent devastated by loss, going through so many stages – worry, denial, fear, grief, pain, numbness, weariness, self-questioning, all underwritten by a fierce belief that hope remains. Following her through all these stages is heartbreaking but there are also uplifting moments, showing the brighter side of humanity in the small ways people can uplift each other in the darkest of times. Griffin vividly captures the healing effect of nature as the water, the sea-breeze, and the rugged shorelines offer Rosie a reconnection with herself and a solace unlike any other, harking back to holidays there with Saoirse, as well as vividly portraying the comforting arms, in many different guises, that community can provide in the face of devastation. Rosie’s relationship with her ageing father is beautifully developed; a kind, patient man dealing with his own problems and grief at having lost his wife and granddaughter, and now getting past the point of being able to do the job he loves as ferry captain.

This book stayed with me long after I read it; a heart wrenching and powerful read, and a heartfelt portrayal of the lengths we go to when hope is all that remains. 

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The Island of Longing was published by Sceptre Books in 2023.

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Anne Griffin is the author of the bestselling novels The Island of Longing, Listening Still and When All Is Said. Anne received the Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year 2019. She has been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the John McGahern Annual Book Prize and the RSL Christopher Bland Prize. Anne is published in twenty-five territories.