Migrations: A Novel

'Migrations is as beautiful and as wrenching as anything I've ever read. This is an extraordinary novel by a wildly talented writer.' —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

For fans of Flight Behavior and Station Eleven, a novel set on the brink of catastrophe, as a young woman chases the world’s last birds—and her own final chance for redemption.

Franny Stone has always been a wanderer. By following the ocean’s tides and the birds that soar above, she can forget the losses that have haunted her life. But when the wild she loves begins to disappear, Franny can no longer wander without a destination. She arrives in remote Greenland with one purpose: to find the world’s last flock of Arctic terns and follow them on their final migration. She convinces Ennis Malone, captain of the Saghani, to take her onboard, winning over his eccentric crew with promises that the birds she is tracking will lead them to fish.

As the Saghani fights its way south, Franny’s new shipmates begin to realize that she is full of dark secrets: night terrors, an unsent pile of letters, and an obsession with pursuing the terns at any cost. When the story of her past begins to unspool, Ennis and his crew must ask themselves what Franny is really running toward—and running from.

Propelled by a narrator as fierce and fragile as the terns she is following, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is both an ode to our threatened world and a breathtaking story about the lengths we will go for the people we love.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

'Transfixing, gorgeously precise…[The] evocation of a world bereft of wildlife is piercing; Franny’s otherworldliness is captivating; and her misadventures and anguished secrets are gripping.” - Booklist, starred review

'Migrations is a nervy and well-crafted novel, one that lingers long after its voyage is over. It’s a story about our mingling sorrows, both personal and global, and the survivor’s guilt that will be left in their wake.' - New York Times Book Review

'Migrations is a wonder. I read it in a gasp. There is hope in these pages; a balm for these troubled times. Charlotte McConaghy's words cut through to the bone.'- Lara Prescott, New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets We Kept