"My mother was never easy in the world of houses. She was a
tinker, a traveler girl who had married a wealthy man. Her name was
Agatha Sheehy....There are silences all around my mother's
story."So begins The Nature of Water and Air, set on a patch
of Irish coast where, amid a flurry of whispers, we meet
Agatha's only surviving daughter, Clodagh. Determined to secure
her mother's elusive love and the truth about her, Clodagh is
swept into a relationship with a handsome, isolated man. He brings
her to the heart of her mother's story, where she must confront
the questions "Does a truth change love?" and "What
madness will come from chasing a secret?"Powerfully sensitive,
this startling debut novel about forbidden love will place Regina
McBride among our most celebrated novelists.
