The two girls sat at opposite ends of the boat and Kel dug and stretched the oars into the ocean like her life depended upon it because it did. 'Just so you know,' said Rose, 'everything, I mean everything, is your fault.' 15-year-old Kel Crow lives in a water-logged world, with a family with whom she shares nothing but blood and a heart defect that she knows could kill her any day. She has a plan to escape, and it's a good one: stowaway on the ship, kidnap the girl, swap the girl to buy passage to America and a life-saving operation. But plans never go how they're meant to … Breath-takingly fierce, smart and tender, Only the Ocean is a story of innocence (and its loss), survival, and courage in the midst of darkness.
Author
Natasha Carthew is a working-class writer from Cornwall. She is published by Hodder, Bloomsbury, Quercus and the National Trust. Her new book Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir of Poverty, Nature and Resilience, is out now with Coronet/Hodder. She is known for writing on Socioeconomic issues and working-class representation in literature for several publications and programmes; including The Booker Prize Foundation, ITV, Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, The Royal Society of Authors Journal, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, The Bookseller, The Guardian, The Observer, Mslexia, The Dark Mountain Project, The Big Issue and The Economist. Natasha guest edited the working-class edition of The Bookseller (Nov 2022) and is recipient of The Bookseller Rising Star Award 2022. Natasha is Founder and Artistic Director of The Working Class Writers Festival and The Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers in association with Octopus/Hachette. She is represented by Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedman Literary Agency.
