Somewhere off the west coast of Ireland lies Inis Murúch-the Island of the Mermaids-a world where myth is more powerful that truth and where the sea sings with the healing and haunting voices of women. It is here that Lisa Carey sets her lyrical first novel, weaving together the voices and lives of three generations of Irish and Irish-American women.

Years ago, Clíona-strong, proud, and practical-sailed for Boston, determined to one day come home. But when the time came to return to Inis Murúch, her daughter Grace-fierce, beautiful, and brazenly sexual-resented her mother's isolated, unfamiliar world. Though entranced by the sea and its healing powers, Grace became desperate to escape the confines of the island, one day stealing away with her small daughter Graínne.

Now Graínne-motherless at fifteen after Grace's death-is about to be taken back across the ocean by Clíona, repeating the journey her mother was forced to make years before. She goes to meet a father she has never known, her heart pulled between a life where she no longer belongs and a family she cannot remember. On the rocky shore of Inis Murúch, she waits for her father and begins to discover her own sexual identity even as she struggles to understand the forces that have torn her family apart.