Some girls are raised. Others survive.

A literary novel about abandonment, emotional inheritance, and the dangerous hunger to be loved.

On the Oregon coast, where the rain blurs the windows and the sea keeps its own secrets, nineteen-year-old Athena Sawyer steps into a world that’s colder and more beautiful than anything she has known.

The Kesslers live with their ghosts close. In their house, grief is not spoken out loud and money and silence protect no one. Damon Kessler himself, remote and unreachable, seems to Athena like both warning and invitation.

But for the first time, Athena feels wanted and that may be the most dangerous thing that has ever happened to her.

A dark novel of longing, inheritance, and the perilous hunger to be chosen, Athena asks what happens when a girl who has spent her life on the outside finally finds a place she is desperate to belong.