"From the bestselling author of Above All Things comes a powerful novel based on a centuries-spanning true story, in which two families come together against the odds to reckon with what it means to reach for reconciliation for historic wrongs as well as the wrongs we commit against the ones we love. In the early 1800s, a married Nova Scotian couple arrives on the shores of an island in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, with a mission to convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity as an act of penance for their own sins. The arrival of the strangers leads to both exchange and friction, cooperation and violence. Two hundred years later, the Stewarts are a Toronto family locked in grief since the drowning of their younger son. Oldest son Zach is still reeling from the guilt of not being there for his brother, the family's golden child. Then there is his mother, Michelle, whose grief has only continued to deepen and develop ever more dangerous edges. When she receives a surprising call from Vanuatu, inviting her family to participate in a reconciliation ceremony for their respective ancestors, Michelle grasps on to this invitation in a desperate effort to save herself and her family. In Vanuatu, we meet the Tabes, an Indigenous family who has suffered its own share of heartbreak, including the recent death of one child in the aftermath of a cyclone, and the looming departure of another. Over the course of the novel, the Tabes and the Stewarts will discover their shared grief, disappointments, hopes, and expectations for what a better future might hold, as well as the wounds that stand in the way of freeing themselves from the legacy of past betrayals. This fictionalized account of the coming together of two families connected by the actions of their ancestors is a moving meditation on the complications of history, the possibilities for redemption, and the meaning of the stories we tell ourselves."-- Provided by publisher.