Fifteen-year-old Grainne, alone after her mother's death, is being taken back to Ireland from America by her grandmother. She will meet a father she has never known, her heart pulled between a far-distant home and a family she cannot remember. On the rocky shores of Inis Muruch, she will discover her own sexual identity even as she struggles to understand the forces that have torn her family apart.

There is an island off the west coast of Ireland called Inis Muruch--the Island of the Mermaids--a world where myth is more powerful than truth, and love can overcome even death. It is here that Lisa Carey sets her lyrical and sensual first novel, weaving together the voices and lives of three generations of Irish and Irish-American women.

Years ago, the fierce and beautiful Grace stole away from the island with her small daughter, Gráinne, unable to bear its isolation. Now Gráinne, is motherless at fifteen, and a grandmother she has never met has come to take her back. Her heart is pulled between a life in which she no longer belongs and a family she cannot remember. But only on Inis Muruch can she begin to understand the forces that have torn her family apart.